

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


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By the Same Author. 


OUT-DOOR PAPERS. 

I vol. i6mo. Cloth, $1.50. 


CONTENTS. 


Saints and their Bodies. 
Physical Courage. 

A Letter to a Dyspeptic. 

The Murder of the Innocents. 
Barbarism and Civilization. 
Gymnastics. 

A New Counterblast. 


The Health of our Girls. 
April Days. 

My Out-Door Study. 
Water-Lilies. 

The Life of Birds. 

The Procession of the Flowers. 
Snow. 


“ ARMY LIFE 


IN A BLACK REGIMENT.” 

i vol. i6mo. 


JAMES It. OSGOOD, & CO., Publishers. 


MALBONE: 


AN OLDPORT ROMANCE. 


BY 

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. 

»* 


“What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing withiu 
her? Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which 
she shows most beautiful.” — Thoreau, MS. Diary. 


BOSTON: 


Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 

1871. 



* 


W 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 
the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 


University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Prelude i 

• 

I. An Arrival 3 

II. Place aux Dames! ..... 18 

III. A Drive on the Avenue .... 30 

IV. Aunt Jane defines her Position . . 40 

V. A Multivalve Heart 50 

VI. “Some Lover’s clear Day” ... 61 

VII. An International Exposition ... 76 

VIII. Talking it over 89 

IX. Dangerous Ways 106 

X. Remonstrances 114 

XI. Descensus averni 122 

XII. A New Engagement .... 133 

XIII. Dreaming Dreams 148 

XIV. The Nemesis of Passion . . . . 157 

XV. Across the Bay .164 

XVI. On the Stairs 176 

XVII. Discovery 183 


IV 


Contents. 


XVIII. Hope’s Vigil 190 

XIX. De Profundis 200 

XX. Aunt Jane to the Rescue . . . 205 

XXf. A Storm 214 

XXII. Out of the Depths .... 224 

XXIII. Requiescat 241 


MALBONE. 


PRELUDE 


S one wanders along this southwestern 



promontory of the Isle of Peace, and 
looks down upon the green translucent water 
which forever bathes the marble slopes of the 
Pirates’ Cave, it is natural to think of the ten 
wrecks with which the past winter has strewn 
this shore. Though almost all trace of their 
presence is already gone, yet their mere memory 
lends to these cliffs a human interest. Where 
a stranded vessel lies, thither all steps con- 
verge, so long as one plank remains upon an- 
other. There centres the emotion. All else 
is but the setting, and the eye sweeps with in- 
difference the line of unpeopled rocks. They 
are barren, till the imagination has tenanted 
them with possibilities of danger and dismay. 
The ocean provides the scenery and properties 
of a perpetual tragedy, but the interest arrives 
with the performers. Till then the shores re- 


i 


A 


2 


Malbone. 


main vacant, like the great conventional arm- 
chairs of the French drama, that wait for 
Rachel to come and die. 

Yet as I. ride along this fashionable avenue 
in August, and watch the- procession of the 
young and fair, — as I look at stately houses, 
from each of which has gone forth almost with- 
in my memory a funeral or a bride, — then 
every thoroughfare of human life becomes in 
fancy but an ocean shore, with its ripples and 
its wrecks. One learns, in 'growing older, that 
no fiction can be so strange nor appear so im- 
probable as would the simple truth ; and that 
doubtless even Shakespeare did but timidly 
transcribe a few of the deeds and passions he 
had personally known. For no man of middle 
age can 'dare trust himself to portray life in its 
full intensity, as he has studied or shared it ; 
he must resolutely set aside as indescribable the 
things most worth describing, and must expect 
to be charged with exaggeration, even when 
he tells the rest. 


Malbone . 


3 


I. 

AN ARRIVAL. 

T T was one of the changing days of our Old- 
-*■ port midsummer. In the morning it had 
rained in rather a dismal way, and Aunt Jane 
had said she should put it in her diary. It was 
a very serious thing for the elements .when 
they got into Aunt Jane’s diary. By noon the 
sun came out as clear and sultry as if there 
had never been a cloud, the northeast wind 
died away, the bay was motionless, the first lo- 
cust of the summer shrilled from the elms, and 
the robins seemed to be serving up butterflies 
hot for their insatiable second brood, while 
nothing seemed desirable for a human lun- 
cheon except ice-cream and fans. In the 
afternoon the southwest wind came up the bay, 
with its line of dark-blue ripple and its -deli- 
cious coolness ; while the hue of the water grew 
more and more intense, till we seemed to be 
living in the heart of a sapphire. 

The household sat beneath the large western 
doorway of the old Maxwell House, — the rear 


4 


Malbone. 


door, which looks on the water. The house 
had just been reoccupied by my Aunt Jane, 
whose great-grandfather had built it, though it 
had for several generations been out of the 
family. I know no finer specimen of those 
large' colonial dwellings in which the genius 
of Sir Christopher Wren bequeathed traditions 
of stateliness to our democratic days. Its cen- 
tral hall has a carved archway ; most of the 
rooms have painted tiles and are wainscoted to 
the ceiling ; the sashes are red-cedar, the great 
- staircase mahogany ; there are pilasters with 
delicate Corinthian capitals ; there are cherubs’ 
heads and wings that go astray and lose them- 
selves in closets and behind glass doors ; there 
are curling acanthus-leaves that cluster over 
shelves and ledges, and there are those grace- 
ful shell-patterns which one often sees on old 
furniture, but rarely in houses. The high front 
door still retains its Ionic cornice ; and the 
western entrance, looking on the bay, is sur- 
mounted by carved fruit and flowers, and is 
crowned, as is the roof, with that pineapple in 
whose symbolic wealth the rich merchants of 
the last century delighted. 

Like most of the statelier houses in that re- 
gion of Oldport, this abode had its rumors of 


Malbone. 


5 


a ghost and of secret chambers. The ghost had 
never been properly lionized nor laid, for Aunt 
Jane, the neatest of housekeepers, had discour- 
aged all silly explorations, had at once re- 
quired all barred windows to be opened, all 
superfluous partitions to be taken down, and 
several highly eligible dark-closets to be nailed 
up. If there was anything she hated, it was 
nooks and odd corners. Yet there had been 
times that year, -when the household would have 
been glad to find a few more such hiding- 
places ; for during the first few weeks the 
house had been crammed with guests so close- 
ly that the very mice had been ill-accommo- 
dated and obliged to sit up all night, which had 
caused them much discomfort and many audi- 
ble disagreements. 

But this first tumult had passed away ; and 
now there remained only the various nephews 
and nieces of the house, including a due pro- 
portion of small children. Two final guests 
were to arrive that day, bringing the latest 
breath of Europe on their wings, — Philip 
Malbone, Hope’s betrothed ; and little Emilia, 
Hope’s half-sister. 

None of the family had seen Emilia since 
her wandering mother had taken her abroad, 


6 


Malbone. 


a fascinating spoiled child of four, and they 
were all eager to see in how many ways the 
succeeding twelve years had completed or cor- 
rected the spoiling. As for Philip, he had 
been spoiled, as Aunt Jane declared, from the 
day of his birth, by the joint effort of all 
friends and neighbors. Everybody had con- 
spired to carry on the process except Aunt 
Jane herself, who directed toward him one of 
her honest, steady, immovable dislikes, which 
may be said to have dated back to the time 
when his father and mother were married, 
some years before he personally entered on the 
scene. 

The New York steamer, detained by the 
heavy fog of the night before, now came in 
unwonted daylight up the bay. At the first 
glimpse, Harry and the boys pushed off in the 
row-boat ; for, as one of the children said, any- 
body who had been to Venice would naturally 
wish to come to the very house in a gondola. 
In another . half-hour there was a great en- 
tanglement of embraces at the water-side, for 
the guests had landed. 

Malbone’s self-poised easy grace was the 
same as ever. ; his chestnut-brown eyes were 
as winning, his features as handsome ; his com- 


Malbone. 


7 


plexion, too clearly pink for a man, had a sea 
bronze upon it : he was the same Philip who 
had left home, though with some added lines 
of care. But in the brilliant little fairy beside 
him all looked in vain for the Emilia they re- 
membered as a child. Her eyes were more 
beautiful than ever, — the darkest violet eyes, 
that grew luminous with thought and almost 
black with sorrow. Her gypsy taste, as every- 
body used to call it, still showed itself in the 
scarlet and dark blue of her dress ; but the 
clouded gypsy tint had gone from her cheek, 
and in its place shone a deep carnation, so 
hard and brilliant that it appeared to be enam- 
elled on the surface, yet so firm and deep-dyed 
that it seemed as if not even death could 
ever blanch it. There is a kind of beauty 
that seems made to be painted on ivory, and 
such was hers. Only the microscopic pencil 
of a miniature-painter could portray those 
slender eyebrows, that arched caressingly over 
the beautiful eyes, — or the silky hair of dark- 
est chestnut that crept in a wavy line along 
the temples, as if longing to meet the brows, — 
or those unequalled lashes ! “ Unnecessarily 

long,” Aunt Jane afterwards pronounced them ; 
while Kate had to admit that they did indeed 


8 


Malbone. 


give Emilia an overdressed look at breakfast, 
and that she ought to have a less showy set to 
match her morning costume. 

But what was most irresistible about Emilia, 
— that which we all noticed in this interview, 
and which haunted us all thenceforward, — was 
a certain wild, entangled look she wore, as of 
some untamed out-door thing, and a kind of 
pathetic lost sweetness in her voice, which 
made her at once and forever a heroine of ro- 
mance with the children. Yet she scarcely 
seemed to heed their existence, and only sub- 
mitted to the kisses of Hope and Kate as if 
that were a part of the price of coming home, 
and she must pay it. 

Had she been alone, there might have been 
an awkward pause ; for if you expect a cousin, 
and there alights a butterfly of the tropics, 
what hospitality can you offer ? But no sense 
of embarrassment ever came near Malbone, 
especially with the children to swarm over him 
and claim him for their own. Moreover, little 
Helen got in the first remark in the way of 
serious conversation. 

" Let me tell him something ! ” said the 
child. “Philip! that doll of mine that you 
used to know, only think ! she was sick and 


Malbone . 


9 


died last summer, and went into the rag-bag. 
And the other split down the back, so there 
was an end of her.” 

Polar ice would have been thawed by this 
reopening of communication. Philip soon had 
the little maid on his shoulder, — the natural 
throne of all children, — and they went in to- 
gether to greet Aunt Jane. 

Aunt Jane was the head of the house, — a 
lady who had spent more than fifty years in 
educating her brains and battling with her ail- 
ments. She had received from her parents a 
considerable inheritance in the way of whims, 
and had nursed it up into a handsome fortune. 
Being one of the most impulsive of human be- 
ings, she was naturally one of the most enter- 
taining ; and behind all her eccentricities there 
was a fund of the soundest sense and the ten- 
derest affection. She had seen much and va- 
ried society, had been greatly admired in her 
youth, but had chosen to remain unmarried. 
Obliged by her physical condition to make her- 
self the first object, she was saved from utter 
selfishness by sympathies as democratic as her 
personal habits were exclusive. Unexpected 
and commonly fantastic in her doings, often 
dismayed by small difficulties, but never by 

i* 


10 


Malbone. 


large ones, she sagaciously administered the 
affairs of all those around her, — planned their 
dinners and their marriages, fought out their 
bargains and their feuds. 

She hated everything irresolute or vague ; 
people might play at cat’s-cradle or study 
Spinoza, just as they pleased ; but, whatever 
they did, they must give their minds to it. 
She kept house from an easy-chair, and ruled 
her dependants with severity tempered by wit, 
and by the very sweetest voice in which reproof 
was ever uttered. She never praised them, 
but if they did anything particularly well, re- 
buked them retrospectively, asking why they 
had never done it well before ? But she treated 
them munificently, made all manner of plans 
for their comfort, and they all thought her the 
wisest and wittiest of the human race. So did 
the youths and maidens of her large circle ; 
they all came to see her, and she counselled, 
admired, scolded, and petted them all. She 
had the gayest spirits, and an unerring eye for 
the ludicrous, and she spoke her mind with ab- 
solute plainness to all comers. ( Her intuitions 
were instantaneous as lightning, and, like that, 
struck very often in the wrong place. She 
was thus extremely unreasonable and alto- 
gether charming. 


Malbone. 


II 


Such was the lady whom Emilia and Mal- 
bone went up to greet, — the one shyly, the 
other with an easy assurance, such as she 
always disliked. Emilia submitted to another 
kiss, while Philip pressed Aunt Jane’s hand, as 
he pressed all women’s, and they sat down. 

“Now begin to tell your adventures,” said 
Kate. “People always tell their adventures 
till tea is ready.” 

“Who can have any adventures left,” said 
Philip, “ after such letters as I wrote you all ? ” 

“ Of which we got precisely one ! ” said 
Kate. “ That made it such an event, after we 
had wondered in what part of the globe you 
might be looking for the post-office ! It was 
like finding a letter in a bottle, or disentangling 
a person from the Dark Ages.” 

“ I was at Neuphatel two months ; but I had 
no adventures. I lodged with a good pasteur \ 
who taught me geology and German.” 

“ That is suspicious,” said Kate. “ Had he 
a daughter passing fair ? ” 

“ Indeed he had.” 

“And you taught her English? That is 
what these beguiling youths always do in nov- 
els.” 


“Yes.” 


12 


Malbone. 


“ What was her name ?” 

« Lili.” 

“ What a pretty name ! How old was she ? ” 

“ She was six.” 

“ O Philip ! ” cried Kate ; “ but I might 
have known it. 'Did' she love you very 
much ? ” 

Hope looked up, her eyes full of mild re- 
proach at the possibility of doubting any 
child’s love for Philip. He had been her be- 
trothed for more than a year, during which 
time she had habitually seen him wooing every 
child he had met as if it were a woman, — 
which, for Philip, was saying a great deal. 
Happily they had in common the one trait of 
perfect amiability, and she knew no more how 
to be jealous than he to be constant. 

“ Lili was easily won,” he said. “ Other 
things being equal, people of six prefer that 
man who is tallest.” 

“ Philip is not so very tall,” said the eldest 
of the boys, who was listening eagerly, and 
growing rapidly. 

“ No,” said Philip, meekly. “ But then the 
pasteur was short, and his brother was a 
dwarf.” 

“ When Lili found that she could reach the 


Malbone. 


13 

ceiling from Mr. Malbone’s shoulder,” said 
Emilia, “she asked no more.” 

“ Then you knew the pastor’s family also, 
my child,” said Aunt Jane, looking at her kind- 
ly and a little keenly. 

“I was allowed to go there sometimes,” she 
began, timidly. 

“To meet her American Cousin,” interrupted 
Philip. “ I got some relaxation in the rules of 
the school. But, Aunt Jane, you have told us 
nothing about your health.” 

“ There is nothing to tell,” she answered. “I 
should like, if it were convenient, to be a little 
better. But in this life, if one can walk across 
the floor, and not be an idiot, it is something. 
That is all I aim at.” 

“ Is n’t it rather tiresome ? ” said Emilia, as 
the elder lady happened to look at her. 

“Not at all,” said Aunt Jane, composedly. 
“I naturally fall back into happiness, when 
left to myself.” 

“ So you have returned to the house of your 
fathers,” said Philip. “ I hope you like it.” 

“ It is commonplace in one respect,” said 
Aunt Jane. “ General Washington once slept 
here.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Philip. “ It is one of that class 
of houses ? ” 


14 


Malbone . 


“ Yes,” said she. “ There is not a village in 
America that has not half a dozen of them, 
not counting those where he only breakfasted. 
Did ever man sleep like that man ? What 
else could he ever have done ? Who governed, 
I wonder, while he was asleep ? How he must 
have travelled ! The swiftest horse could 
scarcely have carried him from one of these 
houses to another. ,, 

“ I never was attached to the memory of 
Washington,” meditated Philip ; “ but I always 
thought it was the pear-tree. It must have 
been that he was such a very unsettled per- 
son.” 

“He certainly was not what is called a do- 
mestic character/’ said Aunt Jane. 

“I suppose you are, Miss Maxwell,” said 
Philip. “ Do you often go out ? ” 

“ Sometimes, to drive,” said Aunt Jane. 
“Yesterday I went shopping with Kate, and 
sat in the carriage while she bought under- 
sleeves enough for a centipede. It is always 
so with that child. People talk about the 
trouble of getting a daughter ready to be mar- 
ried ; but it is like being married once a month 
to live with her.” 

“ I wonder that you take her to drive with 
you,” suggested Philip, sympathetically. 


Malbone . 


15 

“ It is a great deal worse to drive without 
her,” said the impetuous lady. “ She is the 
only person who lets me enjoy things, and now 
I cannot enjoy them in her absence. Yester- 
day I drove alone over the three beaches, and 
left her at home with a dress-maker. Never 
did I see so many lines of surf ; but they only 
seemed to me like some of Kate’s ball-dresses, 
with the prevailing flounces, six deep. I was 
so enraged that she was not there, I wished to 
cover my face with my handkerchief. By the 
third beach I was ready for the madhouse.” 

“ Is Oldport a pleasant place to live in ? ” 
asked Emilia, eagerly. 

“ It is amusing in the summer,” said Aunt 
Jane, “though the society is nothing but a 
pack of visiting-cards. In winter it is too dull 
for young people, and only suits quiet old 
women like me, who merely live here to keep 
the Ten Commandments and darn their stock- 
ings.” 

Meantime the children were aiming at 
Emilia, whose butterfly looks amazed and 
charmed them, but who evidently did not 
know what to do with their eager affection. 

“ I know about you,” said little Helen ; “ I 
know what you said when you were little.” 


1 6 


Malbone . 


“ Did I say anything ? ” asked Emilia, care- 
lessly. 

“Yes,” replied the child, and began to re- 
peat the oft-told domestic tradition in an 
accurate way, as if it were a school lesson. 
“ Once you had been naughty, and your papa 
thought it his duty to slap you, and you 
cried; and he told you in French, because he 
always spoke French with you, that he did not 
punish you for his own pleasure. Then you 
stopped crying, and asked, ‘ Pour le plaisir de 
qui alors ? ’ That means ‘ For whose pleasure 
then ? ’ Hope said it was a droll question for 
a little girl to ask.” 

“I do not think it was Emilia who asked that 
remarkable question, little girl,” said Kate. 

“ I dare say it was,” said Emilia ; “ I have 
been asking it all my life.” Her eyes grew 
very moist, what with fatigue and excitement. 
But just then, as is apt to happen in this world, 
they were all suddenly recalled from tears to 
tea, and the children smothered their curiosity 
in strawberries and cream. 

They sat again beside the western door, after 
tea. The young moon came from a cloud and 
dropped a brQad path of glory upon the bay ; 
a black yacht glided noiselessly in, and an- 


Malbone. 


1 7 


chored amid this tract of splendor. The shadow 
of its masts was on the luminous surface, while 
their reflection lay at a different angle, and 
seemed to penetrate far below. Then the de- 
parting steamer went flashing across this bright 
realm with gorgeous lustre ; its red and green 
lights were doubled in the paler waves, its four 
reflected chimneys chased each other among 
the reflected masts. This jewelled wonder 
passing, a single fishing-boat drifted silently 
by, with its one dark sail ; and then the moon 
and the anchored yacht were left alone. 

Presently some of the luggage came from 
the wharf. Malbone brought out presents for 
everybody ; then all the family went to Europe 
in photographs, and with some reluctance came 
back to America for bed. 


B 


i8 


Malbone. 


II. 

PLACE AUX DAMES! 

I N every town there is one young maiden 
who is the universal favorite, who belongs 
to all sets and is made an exception to all 
family feuds, who is the confidante of all girls 
and the adopted sister of all young men, up to 
the time when they respectively offer them- 
selves to her, and again after they are rejected. 
This post was filled in Oldport, in those days, 
by my cousin Kate. 

Born into the world with many other gifts, 
this last and least definable gift of popularity 
was added to complete them all. Nobody criti- 
cised her, nobody was jealous of her, her very 
rivals lent her their new music and their lov- 
ers ; and her own discarded wooers always 
sought her to be a bridesmaid when they mar- 
ried somebody else. 

She was one of those persons who seem to 
have come into the world well-dressed. There 
was an atmosphere of elegance around her, 
like a costume ; every attitude implied a pres- 


Malbone . 


19 


ence-chamber or a ball-room. The girls com- 
plained that in private theatricals no combina- 
tion of disguises could reduce Kate to the 
ranks, nor give her the “ make-up ” of a wait- 
ing-maid. Yet as her father was a New York 
merchant of the precarious or spasmodic de- 
scription, she had been used from childhood to 
the wildest fluctuations of wardrobe ; — a year 
of Paris dresses, — then another year spent in 
making over ancient finery, that never looked 
like either finery or antiquity when it came 
from her magic hands. Without a particle of 
vanity or fear, secure in health and good-na- 
ture and invariable prettiness, she cared little 
whether the appointed means of grace were 
ancient silk or modern muslin. In her periods 
of poverty, she made no secret of the necessa- 
ry devices ; the other girls, of course, guessed 
them, but her lovers never did, because she 
always told them. There was one particular 
tarlatan dress of hers which was a sort of local 
institution. It was known to all her com- 
panions, like the State House. There was a 
report that she had first worn it at her chris- 
tening ; the report originated with herself. 
The young men knew that she was going to 
the party if she could turn that pink tarlatan 


20 


Malbone . 


once more ; but they had only the vaguest im- 
pression what a tarlatan was, and cared little 
on which side it was worn, so long as Kate was 
inside. 

During these epochs of privation her life, in 
respect to dress, was a perpetual Christmas-tree 
of second-hand gifts. Wealthy aunts supplied 
her with cast-off shoes of all sizes, from two 
and a half up to five, and she used them all. 
She was reported to have worn one straw hat 
through five changes of fashion. It was averred 
that, when square crowns were in vogue, 
she flattened it over a tin pan, and that, when 
round crowns returned, she bent it on the bed- 
post. There was such a charm in her way of 
adapting these treasures, that the other girls 
liked to test her with new problems in the way 
of millinery and dress-making ; millionnaire 
friends implored her to trim their hats, and 
lent her their own things in order to learn how 
to wear them. This applied especially to cer- 
tain rich cousins, shy and studious girls, who 
adored her, and to whom society only ceased 
to be alarming when the brilliant Kate took 
them under her wing, and graciously accepted 
a few of their newest feathers. Well might 
they acquiesce, for she stood by them superbly, 


Malbone. 


21 


and her most favored partners found no way to 
her hand so sure as to dance systematically 
through that staid sisterhood. Dear, sunshiny, 
gracious, generous Kate ! — who has ever done 
justice to the charm given to this grave old 
world by the presence of one free-hearted and 
joyous girl ? 

At the time now to be described, however, 
Kate’s purse was well filled ; and if she wore 
only second-best finery, it was because she had 
lent her very best to somebody else. All that 
her doting father asked was to pay for her 
dresses, and to see her wear them ; and if her 
friends wore a part of them, it only made 
necessary a larger wardrobe, and more varied 
and pleasurable shopping. She was as good 
a manager in wealth as in poverty, wasted 
nothing, took exquisite care of everything, and 
saved faithfully for some one else all that was 
not needed for her own pretty person. 

Pretty she was throughout, from the parting 
of her jet-black hair to the high instep of her 
slender foot ; a glancing, brilliant, brunette 
beauty, with the piquant charm of perpetual 
spirits, and the equipoise of a perfectly healthy 
nature. She was altogether graceful, yet she 
had not the fresh, free grace of her cousin 


22 


M alb one. 


Hope, who was lithe and strong as a haw- 
thorne spray : Kate’s was the narrower grace 
of culture grown hereditary, an in-door ele- 
gance that was born in her, and of which danc- 
ing-school was but the natural development 
You could not picture Hope to your mind in 
one position more than in another ; she had 
an endless variety of easy motion. When you 
thought of Kate, you remembered precisely 
how she sat, how she stood, and how she 
walked. That was all, and it was always the 
same. But is not that enough ? We do not 
ask of Mary Stuart’s portrait that it should 
represent her in more than one attitude, and 
why should a living beauty need more than 
two or three ? 

Kate was betrothed to her cousin Harry, 
Hope’s brother, and, though she was barely 
twenty, they had seemed to appertain to each 
other for a time so long that the memory of 
man or maiden aunt ran not to the contrary. 
She always declared, indeed, that they were 
born married, and that their wedding-day 
would seem like a silver wedding. Harry was 
quiet, unobtrusive, and manly. He might seem 
commonplace at first beside the brilliant Kate 
and his more gifted sister ; but thorough man- 


Malbone. 


23 


hood is never commonplace, and he was a 
person to whom one could anchor. His strong, 
steadfast physique was the type of his whole 
nature ; when he came into the room, you felt 
as if a good many people had been added to 
the company. He made steady progress in 
his profession of the law, through sheer 
worth ; he never dazzled, but he led. His 
type was pure Saxon, with short, curling hair, 
blue eyes, and thin, fair skin, to which the 
color readily mounted. Up to a certain point 
he was imperturbably patient and amiable, 
but, when overtaxed, was fiery and impetuous 
for a single instant, and no more. It seemed 
as if a sudden flash of anger went over him, 
like the flash that glides along the glutinous 
stem of the fraxinella, when you touch it with 
a candle ; the next moment it had utterly 
vanished, and was forgotten as if it had never 
been. 

Kate’s love for her lover was one of those 
healthy and assured ties that often outlast 
the ardors of more passionate natures. For 
other temperaments it might have been inad- 
equate ; but theirs matched perfectly, and it 
was all sufficient for them. If there was 
within Kate’s range a more heroic and ar- 


24 


Malbone. 


dent emotion than that inspired by Harry, it 
was put forth toward Hope. This was her 
idolatry ; she always said that it was fortunate 
Hope was Hal’s sister, or she should have felt 
it her duty to give them to each other, and 
not die till the wedding was accomplished. 
Harry shared this adoration to quite a rea- 
sonable extent, for a brother ; but his admira- 
tion for Philip Malbone was one that Kate 
did not quite share. Harry’s quieter mood 
had been dazzled from childhood by Philip, 
who had always been a privileged guest in 
the household. Kate’s clear, penetrating, buoy- 
ant nature had divined Phil’s weaknesses, and 
had sometimes laughed at them, even from her 
childhood ; though she did not dislike him, 
for she did not dislike anybody. But Harry 
was magnetized by him very much as women 
were ; believed him true, because he was ten- 
der, and called him only fastidious where Kate 
called him lazy. 

Kate was spending that summer with her 
aunt Jane, whose especial pet and pride she 
was. Hope was spending there the summer 
vacation of a Normal School in which she had 
just become a teacher. Her father had shared 
in the family ups and downs, but had finally 


Malbone . 


25 


stayed down, while the rest had remained up. 
Fortunately, his elder children were indifferent 
to this, and indeed rather preferred it ; it was 
a tradition that Hope had expressed the wish, 
when a child, that her father might lose his 
property, so that she could become a teacher. 
As for Harry, he infinitely preferred the drudg- 
ery of a law office to that of a gentleman of 
leisure ; and as for their step-mother, it turned 
out, when she was left a widow, that she had 
secured for herself and Emilia whatever prop- 
erty remained, so that she suffered only the 
delightful need of living in Europe for econ- 
omy. 

The elder brother and sister had alike that 
fine physical vigor which New England is now 
developing, just in time to save it from decay. 
Hope was of Saxon type, though a shade less 
blonde than her brother ; she was a little taller, 
and of more commanding presence, with a pe- 
culiarly noble carriage of the shoulders. Her 
brow was sometimes criticised as being a little 
too full for a woman ; but her nose was straight, 
her mouth and teeth beautiful, and her profile 
almost perfect. Her complexion had lost by 
out-door life something of its delicacy, but had 
gained a freshness and firmness that no sun- 


26 


Malbone. 


light could impair. She had that wealth of 
hair which young girls find the most enviable 
point of beauty in each other. Hers reached 
below her knees, when loosened, or else lay 
coiled, in munificent braids of gold, full of 
sparkling lights and contrasted shadows, upon 
her queenly head. 

Her eyes were much darker than her hair, 
and had a way of opening naively and sud- 
denly, with a perfectly infantine expression, as 
if she at that moment saw the sunlight for the 
first time. Her long lashes were somewhat 
like Emilia’s, and she had the same deeply 
curved eyebrows ; in no other point was there 
a shade of resemblance between the half- 
sisters. As compared with Kate, Hope showed 
a more abundant physical life ; there was more 
blood in her ; she had ampler outlines, and 
health more absolutely unvaried, for she had 
yet to know the experience of a day’s illness. 
Kate seemed born to. tread upon a Brussels 
carpet, and Hope on the softer luxury of the 
forest floor. Out of doors her vigor became a 
sort of ecstasy, and she walked the earth with 
a jubilee of the senses, such as Browning at- 
tributes to his Saul. 

This inexhaustible freshness of physical or- 


Malbone. 


27 


ganization seemed to open the windows of 
her soul, and make for her a new heaven 
and earth every day. It gave also a pecu- 
liar and almost embarrassing directness to 
her mental processes, and suggested in them 
a sort of final and absolute value, as if truth 
had for the first time found a perfectly trans- 
lucent medium. It was not so much that 
she said rare things, but her very silence was 
eloquent, and there was a great deal of it. 
Her girlhood had in it a certain dignity as of a 
virgin priestess or sibyl. Yet her hearty sym- 
pathies and her healthy energy made her at 
home in daily life, and in a democratic society. 
To Kate, for instance, she was a necessity of 
existence, like light or air. Kate’s nature was 
limited ; part of her graceful equipoise was 
narrowness. Hope was capable of far more 
self-abandonment to a controlling emotion, 
and, if she ever erred, would err more widely, 
for it would be because the whole power of 
her conscience was misdirected. “ Once let 
her take wrong for right,” said Aunt Jane, 
“ and stop her if you can ; these born saints 
give a great deal more trouble than children 
of this world, like my Kate.” Yet in daily 
life Hope yielded to her cousin nine times out 


28 


M alb one. 


of ten ; but the tenth time was the key to the 
situation. Hope loved Kate devotedly ; but 
Kate believed in her as the hunted fugitive 
believes in the north star. 

To these maidens, thus united, came Emilia 
home from Europe. The father of Harry and 
Hope had been lured into a second marriage 
with Emilia’s mother, a charming and unscru- 
pulous woman, born with an American body 
and a French soul. She having once won him 
to Paris, held him there life-long, and kept her 
step-children at a safe distance. She arranged 
that, even after her own death, her daughter 
should still remain abroad for education ; nor 
was Emilia ordered back until she brought 
down some scandal by a romantic attempt 
to elope from boarding-school with a Swiss 
servant. It was by weaning her heart from 
this man that Philip Malbone had earned the 
thanks of the whole household during his 
hasty flight through Europe. He possessed 
some skill in withdrawing the female heart 
from an undesirable attachment, though it was 
apt to be done by substituting another. It 
was fortunate that, in this case, no fears could 
be entertained. Since his engagement Philip 
had not permitted himself so much as a flirta- 


Malbone . 


29 


tion ; he and Hope were to be married soon ; 
he loved and admired her heartily, and had an 
indifference to her want of fortune that was 
quite amazing, when we consider that he had 
a fortune of his own. 


30 


Malbone , 


III 


A DRIVE ON THE AVENUE. 
LDPORT AVENUE is a place where a 



great many carriages may be seen driving 
so slowly that they might almost be photo- 
graphed without halting, and where their occu- 
pants already wear the dismal expression which 
befits that process. In these fine vehicles, fol- 
lowing each other in an endless file, one sees 
such faces as used to be exhibited in ball-rooms 
during the performance of quadrilles, before 
round dances came in, — faces marked by the 
renunciation of all human joy. Sometimes a 
faint suspicion suggests itself on the Avenue, 
that these torpid countenances might be roused 
to life, in case some horse should run away. 
But that one chance never occurs ; the riders 
may not yet be toned down into perfect breed- 
ing, but the horses are. I do not know what 
could ever break the gloom of this joyless pro- 
cession, were it not that youth and beauty 
are always in fashion, and one sometimes 
meets an exceptional barouche full of boys 


Malborie. 


3i 


and girls, who could absolutely be no happier 
if they were a thousand miles away from the 
best society. And such a joyous company 
were our four youths and maidens when they 
went to drive that day, Emilia being left at 
home to rest after the fatigues of the voyage. 

“ What beautiful horses ! ” was Hope’s first 
exclamation. “ What grave people ! ” was her 
second. 

“ What though in solemn silence all 
Roll round — ” 

quoted Philip. 

“ Hope is thinking,” said Harry, “ whether 
‘in reason’s ear they all rejoice.’ ” 

“How could you know that ? ” said she, 
opening her eyes. 

“ One thing always strikes me,” said Kate. 
“ The sentence of stupefaction does not seem 
to be enforced till after five-and-twenty. That 
young lady we just met looked quite lively 
and juvenile last year, I remember, and now 
she has graduated into a dowager.” 

“Like little Helen’s kitten,” said Philip. 
“ She justly remarks that, since I saw it last, 
it is all spoiled into a great big cat.” 

“Those must be snobs,” said Harry, as a 
carriage with unusually gorgeous liveries rolled 
by. 


32 


Malbone . 


“ I suppose so/’ said Malbone, indifferently. 
“In Oldport we call all new-comers snobs, 
you know, till they have invited us to their 
grand ball. Then we go to it, and afterwards 
speak well of them, and only abuse their 
wine.” 

“ How do you know them for new-comers ?” 
asked Hope, looking after the carriage. 

“ By their improperly intelligent expres- 
sion,” returned Phil. “ They look around 
them as you do, my child, with the air of 
wide-awake curiosity which marks the Ameri- 
can traveller. That is out of place here. The 
Avenue abhors everything but a vacuum.” 

“ I never can find out,” continued Hope, 
“ how people recognize each other here. They 
do not look at each other, unless they know 
each other : and how are they to know if they 
know, unless they look first ?” 

“ It seems an embarrassment,” said Malbone. 
“ But it is supposed that fashion perforates the 
eyelids and looks through. If you attempt it 
in any other way, you are lost. Newly arrived 
people look about them, and, the more new 
wealth they have, the more they gaze. The 
men are uneasy behind their recently educated 
mustaches, and the women hold their parasols 


Malbone. 


33 


with trembling hands. It takes two years to 
learn to drive on the Avenue. Come again 
next summer, and you will see in those 
same carriages faces of remote supercilious- 
ness, that suggest generations of gout and 
ancestors.” 

“ What a pity one feels,” said Harry, “ for 
these people who still suffer from lingering 
modesty, and need a master to teach them to 
be insolent ! ” 

“They learn it soon enough,” said Kate. 
“Philip is right. Fashion lies in the eye. 
People fix their own position by the way they 
don’t look at you.” 

“ There is a certain indifference of manner,” 
philosophized Malbone, “ before which ingenu- 
ous youth is crushed. I may know that a 
man can hardly read or write, and that his 
father was a ragpicker till one day he picked 
up bank-notes for a million. No matter. If 
he does not take the trouble to look at me, 

I must look reverentially at him.” 

“ Here is somebody who will look at Hope,” 
cried Kate, suddenly. 

A carriage passed, bearing a young lady 
with fair hair, and a keen, bright look, talking 
eagerly to a small and quiet youth beside her. 

2* c 


34 


Malbone . 


Her face brightened still more as she caught 
the eye of Hope, whose face lighted up in re- 
turn, and who then sank back with a sort of 
sigh of relief, as if she had at last seen some- 
body she cared for. The lady waved an un- 
gloved hand, and drove by. 

“ Who is that ? ” asked Philip, eagerly. He 
was used to knowing every one. 

“ Hope’s pet,” said Kate, “ and she who pets 
Hope, Lady Antwerp.” 

“Is it possible?” said Malbone. “That 
young creature ? I fancied her ladyship in 
spectacles, with little side curls. Men speak 
of her with such dismay.” 

“ Of course,” said Kate, “ she asks them 
sensible questions.” 

“That is bad,” admitted Philip. “Nothing 
exasperates fashionable Americans like a really 
intelligent foreigner. They feel as Sydney 
Smith says the English clergy felt about Eliza- 
beth Fry ; she disturbs their repose, and gives 
rise to distressing comparisons, — they long 
to burn her alive. It is not- their notion of a 
countess.” 

“I am sure it' was not mine,” said Hope ; “ I 
can hardly remember that she is one ; I only 
know that I like her, she is so simple and in- 


Malbone . 


35 

telligent. She might be a girl from a Normal 
School. 

“It is because you are just that/’ said Kate, 
“ that she likes you. She came here suppos- 
ing that we had all been at such schools. 
Then she complained of us, — us girls in what 
we call good society, I mean, — because, as she 
more than hinted, we did not seem to know 
anything.” 

“ Some of the mothers were angry,” said 
Hope. “ But Aunt Jane told her that it was 
perfectly true, and that her ladyship had not 
yet seen the best-educated girls in America, 
who were generally the daughters of old minis- 
ters and well-to-do shopkeepers in small New 
England towns, Aunt Jane said.” 

“ Yes,” said Kate, “ she said that the best 
of those girls went to High Schools and 
Normal Schools, and learned things thor- 
oughly, you know ; but that we were only 
taught at boarding-schools and by governesses, 
and came out at eighteen, and what could we 
know? Then came Hope, who had been at 
those schools, and was the child of refined 
people too, and Lady Antwerp was perfectly 
satisfied.” 

“ Especially,” said Hope, “ when Aunt Jane 


36 


Malbone . 


told her that, after all, schools did not do very 
much good, for if people were born stupid 
they only became more tiresome by schooling. 
She said that she had forgotten all she learned 
at school except the boundaries of ancient 
Cappadocia.” 

Aunt Jane’s fearless sayings always passed 
current among her nieces ; and they drove on, 
Hope not being lowered in Philip’s estimation, 
nor raised in her own, by being the pet of a 
passing countess. 

Who would not be charmed (he thought to 
himself) by this noble girl, who # walks the earth 
fresh and strong as a Greek goddess, pure as 
Diana, stately as Juno? She belongs to the 
unspoiled womanhood of another age, and is 
wasted among these dolls and butterflies. 

He looked at her. She sat erect and grace- 
ful, unable to droop into the debility of fash- 
ionable reclining, — her breezy hair lifted a 
little by the soft wind, her face flushed, her 
full brown eyes looking eagerly about, her 
mouth smiling happily. To be with those she 
loved best, and to be driving over the beauti- 
ful earth ! She was so happy that no mob of 
fashionables could have lessened her enjoy- 
ment, or made her for a moment conscious 


Malbone . 


37 


< 

that anybody looked at her. The brilliant 
equipages which they met each moment were 
not wholly uninteresting even to her, for her 
affections went forth to some of the riders 
and to all the horses. She was as well con- 
tented at that moment, on the glittering Ave- 
nue, as if they had all been riding home through 
country lanes, and in constant peril of being 
jolted out among the whortleberry-bushes. 

Her face brightened yet more as they met 
a carriage containing a graceful lady dressed 
with that exquisiteness of taste that charms 
both man and woman, even if no man can 
analyze and no woman rival its effect. She 
had a perfectly high-bred look, and an eye that 
in an instant would calculate one’s ancestors 
as far back as Nebuchadnezzar, and bow to 
them all together. She smiled good-naturedly 
on Hope, and kissed her hand to Kate. 

“So, Hope,” said Philip, “you are bent on 
teaching music to Mrs. Meredith’s children.” 

“ Indeed I am ! ” said Hope, eagerly. “ O 
Philip, I shall enjoy it so ! I do not care so 
very much about her, but she has dear little 
girls. And you know I am a born drudge. 
I have not been working hard enough to en- 
joy an entire vacation, but I shall be so very 


38 


Malbone. 


happy here if I can have some real work for 
an hour or two every other day.” 

“ Hope/’ said Philip, gravely, “ look steadily 
at these people whom we are meeting, and 
reflect. Should you like to have them say, 

‘ There goes Mrs. Meredith’s music teacher’?” 

“ Why not ? ” said Hope, with surprise. “ The 
children are young, and it is not very pre- 
sumptuous. I ought to know enough for that.” 

Malbone looked at Kate, who smiled with 
delight, and put her hand on that of Hope. 
Indeed, she kept it there so long that one or 
two passing ladies stopped their salutations in 
mid career, and actually looked after them in 
amazement at their attitude, as who should* 
say, “What a very mixed society ! ” 

So they drove on, — meeting four-in-hands, 
and tandems, and donkey-carts, and a goat- 
cart, and basket-wagons driven by pretty girls, 
with uncomfortable youths in or out of livery 
behind. They met, had they but known it, 
many who were aiming at notoriety, and some 
who had it ; many who looked contented with 
their lot, and some who actually were so. 
They met some who put on courtesy and. 
grace with their kid gloves, and laid away 
those virtues in their glove-boxes afterwards ; 


Malbone. 


39 


while to others the mere consciousness of kid 
gloves brought uneasiness, redness of the face, 
and a general impression of being all made of 
hands. They met the four white horses of 
an ex-harness-maker, and the superb harnesses 
of an ex-horse-dealer. Behind these came the 
gayest and most plebeian equipage of all, a 
party of journeymen carpenters returning 
from their work in a four-horse wagon. Their 
only fit compeers were an Italian opera-troupe, 
who were chatting and gesticulating on the 
piazza of the great hotel, and planning, amid 
jest and laughter, their, future campaigns. 
Their work seemed like play, while the play 
around them seemed like work. Indeed, most 
people on the Avenue seemed to be happy in 
inverse ratio to their income list. 

As our youths and maidens passed the hotel, 
a group of French naval officers strolled forth, 
some of whom had a good deal of inexplicable 
gold lace dangling in festoons from their 
shoulders, — “ topsail halyards ” the American 
midshipmen called them. Philip looked hard 
at one of these gentlemen. 

“ I have seen that young fellow before,” 
said he, “ or his twin brother. But who can 
swear to the personal identity of a French- 
man ? ” 


40 


Malbone. 


IV. 


AUNT JANE DEFINES HER POSITION. 
HE next morning had that luminous morn- 



-L ing haze, not quite dense enough to be 
called a fog, which is often so lovely in Old- 
port. It was perfectly still ; the tide swelled 
and swelled till it touched the edge of the green 
lawn behind the house, and seemed ready to 
submerge the slender pier ; the water looked 
at first like glass, till closer gaze revealed long 
sinuous undulations, as if from unseen water- 
snakes beneath. A few rags of storm-cloud 
lay over the half-seen hills beyond the bay, and 
behind them came little mutterings of thunder, * 
now here, now there, as if some wild creature 
were roaming up and down, dissatisfied, in the 
shelter of the clouds. The pale haze extended 
into the foreground, and half veiled the schoon- 
ers that lay at anchor with their sails up. It 
was sultry, and there was something in the at- 
mosphere that at once threatened and soothed. 
Sometimes a few drops dimpled the water and 
then ceased; the muttering creature in the 


Malbone. 


4i 


sky moved northward and grew still. It was a 
day when every one would be tempted to go 
out rowing, but when only lovers would go. 
Philip and Hope went. 

Kate and Harry, meanwhile, awaited their 
opportunity to go in and visit Aunt Jane. This 
was a thing that never could be done till near 
noon, because that dear lady was very deliber- 
ate in her morning habits, and always averred 
that she had never seen the sun rise except in 
a panorama. She hated to be hurried in dress- 
ing, too ; for she was accustomed to say that 
she must have leisure to understand herself, 
and this was clearly an affair of time. 

But she was never more charming than when, 
after dressing and breakfasting in seclusion, 
and then vigilantly watching her handmaiden 
through the necessary dustings and arrange- 
ments, she sat at last, with her affairs in order, 
to await events. Every day she expected 
something entirely new to happen, and was 
never disappointed. For she herself always 
happened, if nothing else did ; she could no 
more repeat herself than the sunrise can ; and 
the liveliest visitor always carried away some- 
thing fresher and more remarkable than he 
brought. 


42 


Malbone. 


Her book that morning had displeased her, 
and she was boiling with indignation against 
its author. 

“ I am reading a book so dry,” she said, “ it 
makes me cough. No wonder there was a 
drought last summer. It was printed then. 
Worcester’s Geography seems in my memory 
as fascinating as Shakespeare, when I look 
back upon it from this book. How can a man 
write such a thing and live ? ” 

“ Perhaps he lived by writing it,” said Kate. 

“ Perhaps it was the best he could do,” added 
the more literal Harry. 

“ It certainly was not the best he could do, 
for he might have died, — died instead of dried. 
O, I should like to prick that man with some- 
thing sharp, and see if sawdust did not run out 
of him ! Kate, ask the bookseller to let me 
know if he ever really dies, and then life may 
seem fresh again.” 

“ What is it ? ” asked Kate. 

“ Somebody’s memoirs,” said Aunt Jane. 
“ Was there no man left worth writing about, 
that they should make a biography about this 
one ? It is like a life of Napoleon with all the 
battles left out. They are conceited enough to 
put his age in the upper corner of each page 
too, as if anybody cared how old he was.” 


Malbone. 


43 

“ Such pretty covers ! ” said Kate. “ It is 
too bad.” 

“Yes,” said Aunt Jane. “I mean to send 
them back and have new leaves put in. These 
are so wretched, there is not a teakettle in the 
land so insignificant that it would boil over 
them. Don’t let us talk any more about it. 
Have 'Philip and Hope gone out upon the 
water ? ” 

“Yes, dear,” said Kate. “Did Ruth tell 
you ? ” 

“When did that aimless infant ever tell 
anything ? ” 

“ Then how did you know it ? ” 

“ If I waited for knowledge till that sweet- 
tempered parrot chose to tell me,” Aunt Jane 
went on, “ I should be even more foolish than 
I am.” 

“ Then how did you know ? ” 

“ Of course I heard the boat hauled down, 
and of course I knew that none but lovers 
would go out just before a thunder-storm. 
Then you and Harry came in, and I knew it 
was the others.” 

“Aunt Jane,” said Kate, “you divine every- 
thing : what a brain you have ! ” 

“ Brain ! it is nothing but a collection of 


44 


Mctlbone. 


shreds, like a little girl’s work-basket, — a scrap 
of blue silk and a bit of white muslin.” 

“ Now she is fishing for compliments,” said 
Kate, “ and she shall have one. She was very 
sweet and good to Philip last night .” 

“ I know it,” said Aunt Jane, with a groan. 
“I waked in the night and thought about it. 
I was awake a great deal last night. I have 
heard cocks crowing all my life, but I never 
knew what that creature could accomplish be- 
fore. So I lay and thought how good and for- 
giving I was ; it was quite distressing.” 

“ Remorse ? ” said Kate. 

44 Yes, indeed. I hate to be a saint all the 
time. There ought to be vacations. Instead 
of suffering from a bad conscience, I suffer 
from a good one.” 

44 It was no merit of yours, aunt,” put in 
Harry. 44 Who was ever more agreeable and 
lovable than Malbone last night ? ” 

44 Lovable ! ” burst out Aunt Jane, who never 
could be managed or manipulated by anybody 
but Kate, and who often rebelled against Har- 
ry’s blunt assertions. 44 Of course he is lova- 
ble, and that is why I dislike him. His father 
was so before him. That is the worst of it. I 
never in my life saw any harm done by a vil- 


Malbone. 


45 


lain ; I wish I could. All the mischief in this 
world is done by lovable people. Thank 
Heaven, nobody ever dared to call me lova- 
ble ! ” 

“ I should like to see any one dare call you 
anything else, — you dear, old, soft-hearted 
darling ! ” interposed Kate. 

“ But, aunt,” persisted Harry, “ if you only 
knew what the mass of young men are — ” 

“ Don’t I ?” interrupted the impetuous lady. 
“ What is there that is not known to any 
woman who has common sense, and eyes 
enough to look out of a window ? ” 

“ If you only knew,” Harry went on, u how 
superior Phil Malbone is, in his whole tone, 
to any fellow of my acquaintance.” 

“ Lord help the rest ! ” she answered. 
“Philip has a sort of refinement instead of 
principles, and a heart instead of a conscience, 
— just heart enough to keep himself happy 
and everybody else miserable.” 

“Do you mean to say,” asked the obstinate 
Hal, “ that there is no difference between re- 
finement and coarseness ? ” 

“Yes, there is,” she said. 

“ Well, which is best ? ” 

“Coarseness is safer by a great deal,” said 


Malbone. 


46 

Aunt Jane, “in the hands of a man like 
Philip. What harm can that swearing coach- 
man do, I should like to know, in the street 
yonder? To be sure it is very unpleasant, 
and I wonder they let people swear so, except, 
perhaps, in waste places outside the town ; 
but that is his way of expressing himself, and 
he only frightens people, after all.” 

“ Which Philip does not,” said Hal. 

“ Exactly. That is the danger. He fright- 
ens nobody, not even himself, when he ought 
to wear a label round his neck marked ‘ Dan- 
gerous,’ such as they have at other places 
where it is slippery and brittle. When he is 
here, I keep saying to myself, ‘Too smooth, 
too smooth ! ’ ” 

“Aunt Jane,” said Harry, gravely, “ I know 
Malbone very well, and I never knew any man 
whom it was more unjust to call a hypocrite ?” 

“ Did I say he was a hypocrite ? ” she cried. 
“ He is worse than that ; at least, more really 
dangerous. It is these high-strung sentimen- 
talists who do all the mischief ; who play on 
their own lovely emotions, forsooth, till they 
wear out those fine fiddlestrings, and then 
have nothing left but the flesh and the D. 
Don’t tell me ! ” 


Mctlbone. 


47 


“ Do stop, auntie,” interposed Kate, quite 
alarmed, “ you are really worse than a coach- 
man. You are growing very profane indeed.” 

“I have a much harder time than any 
coachman, Kate,” retorted the injured lady. 
“ Nobody tries to stop him, and you are always 
hushing me up.” 

“ Hushing you up, darling ? ” said Kate. 
“When we only spoil you by praising and 
quoting everything you say.” 

“Only when it amuses you,” said Aunt 
Jane. “So long as I sit and cry my eyes out 
over a book, you all love me, and when I talk 
nonsense, you are ready to encourage it ; 
but when I begin to utter a little sense, you 
all want to silence me, or else run out of the 
room ! Yesterday I read about a newspaper 
somewhere, called the ‘ Daily Evening Voice * ; 
I wish you would allow me a daily morning 
voice.” 

“Do not interfere, Kate,” said Hal. “Aunt 
Jane and I only wish to understand each 
other.” 

“I am sure we don’t,” said Aunt Jane; 
“ I have no desire to understand you, and you 
never will understand me till you comprehend 
Philip.” 


48 


Malbone. 


“ Let us agree on one thing,” Harry said. 
“ Surely, aunt, you know how he loves Hope ? ” 

Aunt Jane approached a degree nearer the 
equator, and said, gently, “ I fear I do.” 

“ Fear?” 

“Yes, fear. That is just what troubles me. 
I know precisely how he loves her. II selaisse 
aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as 
any cat, and, while he will purr, Hope is 
happy. Very few men accept idolatry with 
any degree of grace, but he unfortunately 
does.” 

“ Unfortunately ? ” remonstrated Hal, as far 
as ever from being satisfied. “ This is i*feally 
too bad. You never will do him any justice.” 

“Ah?” said Aunt Jane, chilling again, “I 
thought I did. I observe he is very much 
afraid of me, and there seems to be no other 
reason.” 

“The real trouble is,” said Harry, after a 
pause, “ that you doubt his constancy.” 

“ What do you call constancy ? ” said she. 
“ Kissing a woman’s picture ten years after a 
man has broken her heart ? Philip Malbone 
has that kind of constancy, and so had his 
father before him.” 

This was too much for Harry, who was 


Malbone 


49 


making for the door in indignation, when little 
Ruth came in with Aunt Jane’s luncheon, and 
that lady was soon absorbed in the hopeless 
task of keeping her handmaiden’s pretty blue 
and white gingham sleeve out of the butter- 
plate. 


3 


D 


50 


Malbone. 


V. 

A MULTIVALVE HEART. 

P HILIP MALBONE had that perfectly 
sunny temperament which is peculiarly 
captivating among Americans, because it is so 
rare. He liked everybody and everybody 
liked him ; he had a thousand ways of afford- 
ing pleasure, and he received it in the giving. 
He had a personal beauty, which, strange to 
say, was recognized by both sexes, — for hand- 
some men must often consent to be mildly 
hated by their own. He had travelled much, 
and had mingled in very varied society ; he 
had a moderate fortune, no vices, no ambition, 
and no capacity of ennui. 

He was fastidious and over-critical, it might 
be, in his theories, but in practice he was 
easily suited and never vexed. 

He liked travelling, and he liked staying at 
home ; he was so continually occupied as to 
give an apparent activity to all his life, and yet 
he was never too busy to be interrupted, es- 
pecially if the intruder were a woman or a 


Malbone. 


5i 


child. He liked to be with people of his own 
age, whatever their condition ; he also liked 
old people because they were old, and children 
because they were young. In travelling by 
rail, he would woo crying babies out of their 
mothers’ arms, and still them ; it was always 
his back that Irishwomen thumped, to ask if 
they must get out at the next station ; and he 
might be seen handing out decrepit paupers, 
as if they were of royal blood and bore con- 
cealed sceptres in their old umbrellas. Ex- 
quisitely nice in his personal habits, he had 
the practical democracy of a good-natured 
young prince ; he had never yet seen a human 
being who awed him, nor one whom he had 
the slightest wish to awe. His courtesy, 
had, therefore, that comprehensiveness which 
we call republican, though it was really the 
least republican thing about him. All felt its 
attraction ; there was really no one who dis- 
liked him, except Aunt Jane ; and even she 
admitted that he was the only person who 
knew how to cut her lead-pencil. 

That cheerful English premier who thought 
that any man ought to find happiness enough 
in walking London streets and . looking at the 
lobsters in the fish-markets, was not more easily 


52 


M alb one. 


satisfied than Malbohe. He liked to observe 
the groups of boys fishing at the wharves, 
or to hear the chat of their fathers about 
coral-reefs and penguins’ eggs ; or to sketch 
the fisher’s little daughter awaiting her father 
at night on some deserted and crumbling 
wharf, his blue pea-jacket over her fair ring- 
leted head, and a great cat standing by with 
tail uplifted, her sole protector. He liked the 
luxurious indolence of yachting, and he liked 
as well to float in his wherry among the fleet 
of fishing schooners getting under way after 
a three days’ storm, each vessel slipping out 
in turn from the closely packed crowd, and 
spreading its white wings for flight. He liked 
to watch the groups of negro boys and girls 
strolling by the window at evening, and strum- 
ming on the banjo, — the only vestige of trop- 
ical life that haunts our busy Northern zone. 
But he liked just as well to note the ways of 
well-dressed girls and boys at croquet parties, 
or to sit at the club window and hear the gos- 
sip. He was a jewel of a listener, and was 
not easily bored even when Philadelphians 
talked about families, or New-Yorkers about 
bargains, or Bostonians about books. A man 
who has not one absorbing aim can get a great 


Malbone. 


53 . 


many miscellaneous things into each twenty- 
four hours ; and there was not a day in which 
Philip did not make himself agreeable and 
useful to many people, receive many confi- 
dences, and give much good-humored advice 
about matters of which he knew nothing. 
His friends’ children ran after him in the 
street, and he knew the pet theories and wines 
of elderly gentlemen. He said that he won 
their hearts by remembering every occurrence 
in their lives except their birthdays. 

/ It was, perhaps, no drawback on the popu- \ 
larity of Philip Malbone that he had been for \ 
some ten years reproached as a systematic flirt j 
by all women with whom he did not happen at 
the moment to be flirting. / The reproach was 
unjust ; he had never done anything systemat- 
ically in his life ; it was his temperament that 
flirted, not his will. ^ He simply had that most 
perilous of all seductive natures, in which the 
seducer is himself seduced, (tjwith a personal 
refinement that almost amounted to purity, he 
was constantly drifting into loves more pro- 
foundly perilous than if they had belonged to 
a grosser man. j Almost all women loved him, 
because he lo^ed almost all ; he never had to 
assume an ardor, for he always felt it. His 


54 


Malbone . 


heart was multivalve ; he could love a dozen at 
once in various modes and gradations, press a 
dozen hands in a day, gaze into a dozen pair 
of eyes with unfeigned tenderness ; while the 
last pair wept for him, he was looking into the 
next. In truth, he loved to explore those sweet 
depths ; humanity is the highest thing to in- 
vestigate, he said, and the proper study of man- 
kind is woman. Woman needs to be studied 
while under the influence of emotion ; let us 
therefore have the emotions. This was the 
reason he gave to himself; but this refined 
Mormonism of the heart was not based on 
reason, but on temperament and habit. In 
such matters logic is only for the by-standers. 

His very generosity harmed him, as all our 
good qualities may harm us when linked with 
bad ones ; he had so many excuses for doing 
kindnesses to his friends, it was hard to quar- 
rel with him if he did them too tenderly. He 
was no more capable of unkindness than of 
constancy ; and so strongly did he fix the alle- 
giance of those who loved him, that the women 
to whom he had caused most anguish would 
still defend him when accused ; would have 
crossed the continent, if needed, to nurse him 
in illness, and would have rained rivers of tears 


Malbone. 


55 


on his grave. To do him justice, he would 
have done almost as much for them, — for any 
of them. He could torture a devoted heart, 
but only through a sort of half-wilful uncon- 
sciousness ; he could not bear to see tears shed 
in his presence, nor to let his imagination 
dwell very much on those which flowed in his 
absence, £$ftien he had once loved a woman, 
or even fancied that he loved her, he built for 
her a shrine that was never dismantled, and in 
which a very little faint incense would some- 
times be found burning for years after ; he 
never quite ceased to feel a languid thrill at 
the mention of her name ; he would make even 
for a past love the most generous sacrifices of 
time, convenience, truth perhaps, — everything, 
in short, but the present love. To those who 
had given him all that an undivided heart can 
give he would deny nothing but an undivided 
heart in return. The misfortune was that this 
was the only thing they cared to possess. \ 
This abundant and spontaneous feeling gave 
him an air of earnestness, without which he 
could not have charmed any woman, and, least 
of all, one like Hope. No woman really loves 
a trifler ; she must at least convince herself 
that he who trifles with others is serious with 


56 


Malbone. 


her. Philip was never quite serious and never 
quite otherwise ; he never deliberately got up 
a passion, for it was never needful ; he simply 
found an object for his emotions, opened their 
valves, and then watched their flow. To love 
a charming woman in her presence is no test 
of genuine passion ; let us know how much 
you long for her in absence. This longing 
had never yet seriously troubled Malbone, 
provided there was another charming person 
within an easy walk. 

If it was sometimes forced upon him that all 
this ended in anguish to some of these various 
charmers, first or last, then there was always 
in reserve the pleasure of repentance. He 
was very winning and generous in his .repent- 
ances, and he enjoyed them so much they were 
often repeated. He did not pass for a weak 
person, and he was not exactly weak ; but he 
spent his life in putting away temptations with 
one hand and pulling them back with the 
other. \ There was for him something piquant 
in being thus neither innocent nor guilty, but 
always on some delicious middle ground. He 
loved dearly to skate on thin ice, — that -was 
the trouble, • — especially where he fancied the 
water to be just within his depth. Unluckily 
the sea of life deepens rather fast. 


Malbone. 


57 


Malbone had known Hope from her child- 
hood, as he had known her cousins, but their 
love dated from their meetings beside the sick- 
bed of his mother, over whom he had watched 
with unstinted devotion for weary months. 
She had been very fond of the young girl, and 
her last earthly act was to place Hope’s hand 
in Philip’s. Long before this final consecra- 
tion, Hope had won his heart more thorough- 
ly, he fancied, than any woman he had ever 
seen. The secret of this crowning charm was, 
perhaps, that she was a new sensation. He 
had prided himself on his knowledge of her 
sex, and yet here was a wholly new species. 
He was acquainted with the women of society, 
and with the women who only wished to be in 
society. But here was . one who was in the 
chrysalis, and had never been a grub, and had 
no wish to be a butterfly, and what should he 
make of her ? He was like a student of in- 
sects who had never seen a bee. Never had 
he known a young girl who cared for the things 
which this maiden sought, or who was not daz- 
zled by things to which Hope seemed perfectly 
indifferent. She was not a devotee, she was 
not a prude ; people seemed to amuse and in- 
terest her; she liked them, she declared, as 
3 * 


Malbone . 


5 * 

much as she liked books. But this very way 
of putting the thing seemed like inverting the 
accustomed order of affairs in the polite world, 
and was of itself a novelty. 

Of course he had previously taken his. turn 
for a while among Kate’s admirers ; but it was 
when she was very young, and, moreover, it 
was hard to get up anything like a tender and 
confidential relation with that frank maiden ; 
she never would have accepted Philip Malbone 
for herself, and she was by no means satisfied 
with his betrothal to her best beloved. But 
that Hope loved him ardently there was no 
doubt, however it might be explained. Per- 
haps it was some law of opposites, and she 
needed some one of lighter nature than her 
own. As her resolute purpose charmed him, 
so she may have found a certain fascination in 
the airy way in which he took hold on life ; he 
was so full of thought and intelligence ; pos- 
sessing infinite leisure, and yet incapable of 
ennui ; ready to oblige every one, and doing so 
many kind acts at so little personal sacrifice ; 
always easy, graceful, lovable, and kind. In 
her just indignation at those who called him 
heartless, she forgot to notice that his heart 
was not deep. He was interested in all her 


Malbone . 


59 


pursuits, could aid her in all her studies, sug- 
gest schemes for her benevolent desires, and 
could then make others work for her, and even 
work himself. People usually loved Philip, 
even while they criticised him ; but Hope 
loved him first, and then could not criticise him 
at all. 

Nature seems always planning to equalize 
characters, and to protect our friends from 
growing too perfect for our deserts. Love, for 
instance, is apt to strengthen the weak, and yet 
sometimes weakens the strong. Under its in- 
fluence Hope sometimes appeared at disadvan- 
tage. Had the object of her love been indif- 
ferent, the result might have been otherwise, 
but her ample nature apparently needed to 
contract itself a little, to find room within 
Philip’s heart. Not that in his presence she 
became vain or petty or jealous ; that would 
have been impossible. She only grew cred- 
ulous and absorbed and blind. A kind of 
gentle obstinacy, too, developed itself in her 
nature, and all suggestion of defects in him 
fell off from her as from a marble image of 
Faith. If he said or did anything, there was 
no appeal ; that was settled, let us pass to 
something else. 


6o 


Malbone. 


I almost blush to admit that Aunt Jane — 
of whom it could by no means be asserted 
that she was a saintly lady, but only a very 
charming one — rather rejoiced in this trans- 
formation. 

“ I like it better, my dear,” she said, with 
her usual frankness, to Kate. “ Hope was al- 
together too heavenly for my style. When 
she first came here, I secretly thought’ I never 
should care anything about her. She seemed 
nothing but a little moral tale. I thought she 
would not last me five minutes. But now she 
is growing quite human and ridiculous about 
that Philip, and I think I may find her very 
attractive indeed.” 


M alb one. 


6 1 


VI. 


“SOME LOVER’S CLEAR DAY.” 

OPE ! ” said Philip Malbone, as they 



I sailed together in a little boat the 
next morning, “ I have come back to you from 
months of bewildered dreaming. I have been 
wandering, — no matter where. I need you. 
You cannot tell how much I need you.” 

“ I can estimate it,” she answered, gently, 
“ by my need of you.” 

“ Not at all,” said Philip, gazing in her 
trustful face. “Any one whom you loved 
would adore you, could he be by your side. 
You need nothing. It is I who need you.” 

“ Why ? ” she asked, simply. 

“Because,” he said, “I am capable of be- 
having very much like a fool. Hope, I am 
not worthy of you ; why do you love me ? 
why do you trust me ? ” 

“ I do not know how I learned to love you,” 
said Hope. “ It is a blessing that was given 
to me. But I learned to trust you in your 
mother’s sick-room.” 


62 


Malbone. 


“ Ay,” said Philip, sadly, “ there, at least, I 
did my full duty.” 

“ As few would have done it,” said Hope, 
firmly, — “ very few. Such prolonged self- 
sacrifice must strengthen a man for life.” 

“Not always,” said Philip, uneasily. “Too 
much of that sort of thing may hurt one, I 
fancy, as well as too little. He may come to 
imagine that the balance of virtue is in his 
favor, and that he may grant himself a little 
indulgence to make up for lost time. That 
sort of recoil is a little dangerous, as I some- 
times feel, do you know ? ” 

“And you show it,” said Hope, ardently, 
“by fresh sacrifices! How much trouble you 
have taken about Emilia ! Some time, when 
you are willing, you shall tell me all about it. 
You always seemed to me a magician, but 
I did not think that even you could restore 
her to sense and wisdom so soon.” 

Malbone was just then very busy putting 
the boat about ; but when he had it on the 
other tack, he said, “ How do you like her ? ” 

“ Philip,” said Hope, her eyes filling with 
tears, “ I wonder if you have the slightest con- 
ception how my heart is fixed on that child. 
She has always been a sort of dream to me, 


Malbone, 


63 


and the difficulty of getting any letters from 
her has only added to the excitement. Now 
that she is here, my whole heart yearns 
toward her. Yet, when I look into her eyes, 
a sort of blank hopelessness comes over me. 
They seem like the eyes of some untamable 
creature whose language I shall never learn. 
Philip, you are older and wiser than I, and 
have shown already that you understand her. 
Tell me what I can do to make her love me ? ” 

“ Tell me how any one could help it ? ” said 
Malbone, looking fondly on the sweet, pleading 
face before him. 

“I am beginning to fear that it can be 
helped,” she said. Her thoughts were still 
with Emilia. 

“ Perhaps it can,” said Phil, “ if you sit so 
far away from people. Here we are alone on 
the bay. Come and sit by me, Hope.” 

She had been sitting amidships, but she 
came aft at once, and nestled by him as he sat 
holding the tiller. She put her face against 
his knee, like a tired child, and shut her eyes ; 
her hair was lifted by the summer breeze ; a 
scent of roses came from her ; the mere con- 
tact of anything so fresh and pure was a de- 
light. He put his arm around her, and all the 


6 4 


Malbone. 


first ardor of passion came back to him again ; 
he remembered how he had longed to win 
this Diana, and how thoroughly she was won. 

u It is you who do me good,” said she. “ O 
Philip, sail as slowly as you can.” But he 
only sailed farther, instead of more slowly, 
gliding in and out among the rocky islands 
in the light north wind, which, for a wonder, 
lasted all that day, — dappling the bare hills 
of the Isle of Shadows with a shifting beauty. 
The tide was in and brimming, the fishing- 
boats were busy, white gulls soared and clat- 
tered round them, and heavy cormorants 
flapped away as they neared the rocks. Be- 
neath the boat the soft multitudinous jelly- 
fishes waved their fringed pendants, or glit- 
tered with tremulous gold along their pink, 
translucent sides. Long lines and streaks of 
paler blue lay smoothly along the enamelled 
surface, the low, amethystine hills lay couched 
beyond them, and little clouds stretched them- 
selves in lazy length above the beautiful ex- 
panse. They reached the ruined fort at last, 
and Philip, surrendering Hope to others, was 
himself besieged by a joyous group. 

As you stand upon the crumbling parapet 
of old Fort Louis, you feel yourself poised 


Malbone. 


65 


/ 

in middle air ; the sea-birds soar and swoop 
around you, the white surf lashes the rocks far 
below, the white vessels come and go, the water 
is around you on all sides but one, and spreads 
in pale blue beauty up the lovely bay, or, in 
deeper tints, southward towards the horizon 
line. I know of no ruin in America which 
nature has so resumed ; it seems a part of the 
living rock ; you cannot imagine it away. 

It is a single round, low tower, shaped like 
the tomb of Caecilia Metella. But its stately 
position makes it rank with the vast sisterhood 
of wave-washed strongholds ; it might be King 
Arthur’s Cornish Tyntagel ; it might be “ the 
teocallis tower” of Tuloom. As you gaze 
down from its height, all things that float 
upon the ocean seem equalized. Look at the 
crowded life on yonder frigate, coming in full- 
sailed before the steady sea-breeze. To furl 
that heavy canvas, a hundred men cluster 
like bees upon the yards, yet to us upon 
this height it is all but a plaything for the 
eyes, and we turn with equal interest from 
that thronged floating citadel to some lonely 
boy in his skiff. 

Yonder there sail to the ocean, beating 
wearily to windward, a few slow vessels. In- 

E 


66 


Malbone . 


ward come jubilant white schooners, wing-and- 
wing. There are fishing-smacks towing their 
boats behind them like a family of children ; 
and there are slender yachts that bear only 
their own light burden. Once from this height 
I saw the whole yacht squadron round Point 
J udith, and glide in like a flock of land-bound 
sea-birds ; and above them, yet more snowy 
and with softer curves, pressed onward the 
white squadrons of the sky. 

Within, the tower is full of debris , now dis- 
integrated into one solid mass, and covered 
with vegetation. You can lie on the blossom- 
ing clover, where the bees hum and the crick- 
ets chirp around you, and can look through 
the arch which frames its own fair picture. 
In the foreground lies the steep slope over- 
grown with bayberry and gay .with thistle 
blooms ; then the little winding cove with its 
bordering cliffs ; and the rough pastures with 
their grazing sheep beyond. Or, ascending 
the parapet, you can look across the bay to the 
men making hay picturesquely on far-off lawns, 
or to the cannon on the outer works of Fort 
Adams, looking like vast black insects that 
have crawled forth to die. 

Here our young people spent the day ; some 


Malbone. 


67 


sketched, some played croquet, some bathed 
in rocky inlets where the kingfisher screamed 
above them, some rowed to little craggy isles 
for wild roses, some fished, and then were 
taught by the boatmen to cook their fish in 
novel island ways. The morning grew more 
and more cloudless, and then in the afternoon 
a fog came and went again, marching, by with 
its white armies, soon met and annihilated by 
a rainbow. 

The conversation that day was very gay and 
incoherent, — little fragments of all manner of 
things ; science, sentiment, everything : “ Like 
a distracted dictionary,” Kate said. At last 
this lively maiden got Philip away from the 
rest, and began to cross-question him. 

“Tell me,” she said, “about Emilia’s Swiss 
lover. She shuddered when she spoke of him. 
Was he so very bad ?” 

“Not at all,” was the answer. “You had 
false impressions of him. He was a handsome, 
manly fellow, a little over-sentimental. He had 
travelled, and had been a merchant’s clerk 
in Paris and London. Then he came back, 
and became a boatman on the lake, some said, 
for love of her.” 

“ Did she love him ? ” 


68 


Malbone . 


“ Passionately, as she thought.” 

“ Did he love her much ? ” 

“ I suppose so.” 

“ Then why did she stop loving him ? ” 

“ She does not hate him ? ” 

“ No,” said Kate, “ that is what surprises me. 
Lovers hate, or those who have been lovers. 
She is only indifferent. Philip, she had wound 
silk upon a torn piece of his carte-de-visite> 
and did not know it till I showed it to her. 
Even then she did not care.” 

“ Such is woman ! ” said Philip. 

“Nonsense,” said Kate. “She had seen 
somebody whom she loved better, and she still 
loves that somebody. Who was it ? She had 
not been introduced into society. Were there 
any superior men among her teachers ? She 
is just the girl to fall in love with her teacher, 
at least in Europe, where they are the only 
men one sees.” 

“ There were some very superior men among 
them,” said Philip. “ Professor Schirmer has 
a European reputation ; he wears blue specta- 
cles and a maroon wig.” 

“ Do not talk so,” said Kate. “ I tell you, 
Emilia is not changeable, like you, sir. She is 
passionate and constant. She would have 


Malbone. 


69 

married^that man or died for him. You may 
think that your sage counsels restrained her, 
but they did not ; it was that she loved some 
one else. Tell me honestly. Do you not 
know that there is somebody in Europe whom 
she loves to distraction ? ” 

“ I do not know it,” said Philip. 

“Of course you do not know it,” returned 
the questioner. “ Do you not think it? ” 

“ I have no reason to believe it.” 

“ That has nothing to do with it,” said Kate. 
“Things that we believe without any reason 
have a great deal more weight with us. Do 
you not believe it ? ” 

“ No,” said Philip, point-blank. 

“It is very strange,” mused Kate. “Of 
course you do not know much about it. She 
may have misled you, but I am sure that 
neither you nor any one else could have cured 
her of a passion, especially an unreasonable 
one, without putting another in its place. If 
you did it without that, you are a magician, as 
Hope once called you. Philip, I am afraid of 
you.” 

“ There we sympathize,” said Phil. “ I am 
sometimes afraid of myself, but I discover with- 
in half an hour what a very commonplace and 
harmless person I am.” 


70 


Malbone. 


Meantime Emilia found herself beside her 
sister, who was sketching. After watching 
Hope for a time in silence, she began to ques- 
tion her. 

“Tell me what you have been doing in all 
these years,” she said. 

“ O, I have been at school,” said Hope. 
“ First I went through the High School ; then 
I stayed out of school a year, and studied 
Greek and German with my uncle, and music 
with my aunt, who plays uncommonly well. 
Then I persuaded them to let me go to the 
Normal School for two years, and learn to be 
a teacher.” 

“A teacher ! ” said Emilia, with surprise. “ Is 
it necessary that you should be a teacher ? ” 

“Very necessary,” replied Hope. “I must 
have something to do, you know, after I leave 
school.” 

“To do ? ” said the other. “ Cannot you go 
to parties ? ” 

“Not all the time,” said her sister. 

“Well,” said Emilia, “in the mean time you 
can go to drive, or make calls, or stay at home 
and make pretty little things to wear, as other 
girls do.” 

“ I can find time for that too, little sister, 


Malbone. 


7 * 


when I need them. But I love children, you 
know, and I like to teach interesting studies. 
I have splendid health, and I enjoy it all. I 
like it as you love dancing, my child, only I like 
dancing too, so I have a greater variety of en- 
joyments.” 

“ But shall you not sometimes find it very 
hard ? ” said Emilia. 

“ That is why I shall like it,” was the answer. 

“ What a girl you are ! ” exclaimed the 
younger sister. “You know everything and 
can do everything.” 

“ A very short everything,” interposed Hope. 

“Kate says,” continued Emilia, “that you 
speak French as well as I do, and I dare say 
you dance a great deal better ; and those are 
the only things I know.” 

“If we both had French partners, dear,” re- 
plied the elder maiden, “they would soon find 
the difference in both respects. My dancing 
came by nature, I believe, and I learned French 
as a child, by talking with my old uncle, who 
was half a Parisian. I believe I have a good 
accent, but I have so little practice that I have 
no command of the language compared to 
yours. In a week or two we can both try our 
skill, as there is to be a ball for the officers of 


7 2 


Malbone . 


the French corvette yonder,” and Hope point- 
ed to the heavy spars, the dark canvas, and 
the high quarter-deck which made the “Jean 
Hoche ” seem as if she had floated out of the 
days of Nelson. 

The calm day waned, the sun drooped to his 
setting amid a few golden bars and pencilled 
lines of light. Ere they were ready for de- 
parture, the tide had ebbed, and, in getting the 
boats to a practicable landing-place, Malbone 
was delayed behind the others. As he at 
length brought his boat to the rock, Hope sat 
upon the ruined fort, far above him, and sang. 
Her noble contralto voice echoed among the 
cliffs down to the smooth water ; the sun went 
down behind her, and still she sat stately and 
noble, her white dress looking more and more 
spirit-like against the golden sky ; and still the 
song rang on, — 

“ Never a scornful word should grieve thee, 

I ’d smile on thee, sweet, as the angels do ; 

Sweet as thy smile on me shone ever, 

Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.” 

All sacredness and sweetness, all that was pure 
and brave and truthful, seemed to rest in her. 
And when the song ceased at his summons, 
and she came down to meet him, — glowing, 


Malbone. 


73 


beautiful, appealing, tender, — then all meaner 
spells vanished, if such had ever haunted him, 
and he was hers alone. 

Later that evening, after the household had 
separated, Hope went into the empty drawing- 
room for a light. Philip, after a moment’s 
hesitation, followed her, and paused in the 
doorway. She stood, a white-robed figure, 
holding the lighted candle ; behind her rose 
the arched alcove, whose quaint cherubs 
looked down on her ; she seemed to have 
stepped forth, the awakened image of a saint. 
Looking up, she saw his eager glance ; then 
she colored, trembled, and put the candle 
down. He came to her, took her hand and 
kissed it, then put his hand upon her brow and 
gazed into her face, then kissed her lips. She 
quietly yielded, but her color came and went, 
and her lips moved as if to speak. For a mo- 
ment he saw her only, thought only of her. 

Then, even while he gazed into her eyes, a 
flood of other memories surged over him, and 
his own eyes grew dim. His head swam, the 
lips he had just kissed appeared to fade away, 
and something of darker, richer beauty seemed 
to burn through those fair features ; he looked 
through those gentle eyes into orbs more ra- 
4 


74 


Malbone. 


diant, and it was as if a countenance of eager 
passion obliterated that fair head, and spoke 
with substituted lips, “Behold your love.” 
There was a thrill of infinite ecstasy in the 
work his imagination did ; he gave it rein, then 
suddenly drew it in and looked at Hope. Her 
touch brought pain for an instant, as she laid 
her hand upon him, but he bore it. Then 
some influence of calmness came ; there swept 
by him a flood of earlier, serener memories ; 
he sat down in the window-seat beside her, 
and when she put her face beside his, and her 
soft hair touched his cheek, and he inhaled 
the rose-odor that always clung round her, 
every atom of his manhood stood up to drive 
away the intruding presence, and he again 
belonged to her alone. 

When he went to his chamber that night, 
he drew from his pocket a little note in a girl- 
ish hand, which he lighted in the candle, and 
put upon the open hearth to burn. With what 
a cruel, tinkling rustle the pages flamed and 
twisted and opened, as if the fire read them, 
and collapsed again as if in agonizing effort 
to hold their secret even in death ! The 
closely folded paper refused to burn, it went 
out again and again ; while each time Philip 


Malbone. 


7 5 


Malbone examined it ere relighting, with a 
sort of vague curiosity, to see how much pas- 
sion had already vanished out of existence, 
and how much yet survived. For each of 
these inspections h£ had to brush aside the 
calcined portion of the letter, once so warm 
and beautiful with love, but changed to some- 
thing that seemed to him a semblance of his 
own ' heart just then, — black, trivial, and 
empty. 

Then he took from a little folded paper a 
long tress of dark silken hair, and, without 
trusting himself to kiss it, held it firmly in the 
candle. It crisped and sparkled, and sent out 
a pungent odor, then turned and writhed be- 
tween his fingers, like a living thing in pain. 
What part of us has earthly immortality but 
our hair ? It dies not with death. When all 
else of human beauty has decayed beyond 
corruption into the more agonizing irrecov- 
erableness of dust, the hair is still fresh and 
beautiful, defying annihilation, and restor- 
ing to the powerless heart the full association 
of the living image. These shrinking hairs, 
-they feared not death, but they seemed to fear 
Malbone. Nothing but the hand of man 
could destroy what he was destroying ; but his 
hand shrank not, and it was done. 


;6 


Malbone . 


VII. 

AN INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION. 

A T the celebrated Oldport ball for the 
French officers, the merit of each 
maiden was estimated by the number of for- 
eigners with whom she could talk at once, for 
there were more gentlemen than ladies, and 
not more than half the ladies spoke French. 
Here Emilia was in her glory ; the ice being 
once broken, officers were to her but like so 
many school-girls, and she rattled away to the 
admiral and the fleet captain and two or three 
lieutenants at once, while others hovered be- 
hind the circle of her immediate adorers, to 
pick up the stray shafts of what passed for wit. 
Other girls again drove two-in-hand, at the 
most, in the way of conversation ; while those 
least gifted could only encounter one small 
Frenchman in some safe corner, and converse 
chiefly by smiles and signs. 

On the whole, the evening opened gayly. 
Newly arrived Frenchmen are apt to be so 
unused to the familiar society of unmarried 


Malbone. 


77 


girls, that the most innocent share in it has for 
them the zest of forbidden fruit, and the most 
blameless intercourse seems almost a bonne 
fortune. Most of these officers were from the 
lower ranks of French society, but they all 
had that good-breeding which their race wears 
with such ease, and can unhappily put off with 
the same. 

The admiral and the fleet captain were soon 
turned over to Hope, who spoke French as 
she did English, with quiet grace. She found 
them agreeable companions, while Emilia 
drifted among the elder midshipmen, who 
were dazzling in gold lace if not in intel- 
lect. Kate fell to the share of a vehement 
little surgeon, who danced her out of breath. 
Harry officiated as interpreter between the 
governor of the State and a lively young 
ensign, who yearned for the society of digni- 
taries. The governor was quite aware that 
he himself could not speak French ; the 
Frenchman was quite unaware that he him- 
self could not speak English ; but with Har- 
ry’s aid they plunged boldly into conversation. 
Their talk happened to fall on steam-engines, 
English, French, American ; their comparative 
cost, comparative power, comparative cost 


73 


Malbone. 


per horse power, — until Harry, who was not 
very strong upon the steam-engine in his 
own tongue, and was quite helpless on that 
point in any other, got a good deal astray 
among the numerals, and implanted some 
rather wild statistics in the mind of each. 
The young Frenchman was far more definite, 
when requested by the governor to state in 
English the precise number of men engaged 
on board the corvette. With the accuracy of 
his nation, he beamingly replied, “ Seeshun- 
dredtousand.” 

As is apt to be the case in Oldport, other 
European nationalities beside the French were 
represented, though the most marked foreign 
accent was of course to be found among 
Americans just returned. There were Eu- 
ropean diplomatists who spoke English per- 
fectly ; there were travellers who spoke no 
English at all ; and as usual each guest sought 
to practise himself in the tongue he knew 
least. There was the usual eagerness among 
the fashionable vulgar to make acquaint- 
ance with anything that combined broken 
English and a title ; and two minutes after 
a Russian prince had seated himself com- 
fortably on a sofa beside Kate, he was ve- 


Malbone . 


79 


hemently tapped on the shoulder by Mrs* 
Courtenay Brash with the endearing sum- 
mons : “ Why ! Prince, I did n’t see as you was 
here. Do you set comfortable where you be ? 
Come over to this window, and tell all you 
know ! ” 

The prince might have felt that his sum- 
mons was abrupt, but knew not that it was 
ungrammatical, and so was led away in tri- 
umph. He had been but a month or two in 
this country, and so spoke our language no 
more correctly than Mrs. Brash, but only with 
more grace. There was no great harm in 
Mrs. Brash ; like most loquacious people, she 
was kind-hearted, with a tendency to corpu- 
lence and good works. She was also afflicted 
with a high color, and a chronic eruption of 
diamonds. Her husband had an eye for them, 
having begun life as a jeweller’s apprentice, 
and having developed sufficient sharpness of 
vision in other directions to become a million- 
naire, and a Congressman, and to let his wife 
do as she pleased. 

What goes forth from the lips may vary in 
dialect, but wine and oysters speak the uni- 
versal language. The supper-table brought 
our party together, and they compared notes. 


8o 


Malbone. 


" Parties are very confusing,” philosophized 
Hope, — “ especially when waiters and part- 
ners dress so much alike. Just now I saw an 
ill-looking man elbowing his way up to Mrs. 
Meredith, and I thought he was bringing her 
something on a plate. Instead of that, it was 
his hand he held out, and she put hers into it ; 
and I was told that he was one of the leaders 
of society. There are very few gentlemen 
here whom I could positively tell from the 
waiters by their faces, and yet Harry says the 
fast set are not here.” 

“Talk of the angels ! ” said Philip. “ There 
come the Inglesides.” 

Through the door of the supper-room they 
saw entering the drawing-room one of those 
pretty, fair-haired women who grow older up 
to twenty-five and then remain unchanged till 
sixty. She was dressed in the loveliest pale 
blue silk, very low in the neck, and she seemed 
to smile on all with her white teeth and her 
white shoulders. This was Mrs. Ingleside. 
With her came her daughter Blanche, a pretty 
blonde, whose bearing seemed at first as in- 
nocent and pastoral as her name. Her dress 
was of spotless white, what there was of it ; and 
her skin was so snowy, you could hardly 


M alb one. 


81 


tell where the dress ended. Her complexion 
was exquisite, her eyes of the softest blue ; 
at twenty-three she did not look more than 
seventeen ; and yet there was such a contrast 
between these virginal traits, and the worn, 
faithless, hopeless expression, that she looked, 
as Philip said, like a depraved lamb. Does it 
show the higher nature of woman, that, while 
“ fast young men ” are content to look like 
well-dressed stable-boys and billiard-markers, 
one may observe that girls of the corresponding 
type are apt to addict themselves to white 
and rosebuds, and pose themselves for falling 
angels ? 

Mrs. Ingleside was a stray widow (from New 
Orleans via Paris), into whose antecedents it 
was best not to inquire too closely. After 
many ups and downs, she was at present up. 
It was difficult to state with certainty what bad 
deed she had 'ever done, or what good deed. 
She simply lived by her wits, and perhaps by 
some want of that article in her male friends. 
Her house was a sort of gentlemanly club- 
house, where the presence of two women 
offered a shade less restraint than if there had 
been men alone. She was amiable and un- 
scrupulous, went regularly to church, and need- 

4* F 


82 


Malbone. 


ed only money to be the most respectable and 
fastidious of women. It was always rather a 
mystery who paid for her charming little din- 
ners ; indeed, several things in her demeanor 
were questionable, but as the questions were 
never answered, no harm was done, and every- 
body invited her because everybody else did. 
Had she committed some graceful forgery to- 
morrow, or some mild murder the next day, 
nobody would have been surprised, and all her 
intimate friends would have said it was what 
they had always expected. 

Meantime the entertainment went on. 

“ I shall not have scalloped oysters in heav- 
en,” lamented Kate, as she finished with 
healthy appetite her first instalment. 

“Are you sure you shall not?” said the 
sympathetic Hope, who would have eagerly 
followed Kate into Paradise with a supply of 
whatever she liked best. 

“ I suppose you will, darling,” responded 
Kate, “ but what will you care ? It seems hard 
that those who are bad enough to long for 
them should not be good enough to earn 
them.” 

At this moment Blanche Ingleside and her 
train swept into the supper-room; the girls 


Malbone. 


83 


cleared a passage, their attendant youths col- 
lected chairs. Blanche tilted hers slightly 
against a wall, professed utter exhaustion, and 
demanded a fresh bottle of champagne in a 
voice that showed no signs of weakness. Pres- 
ently a sheepish youth drew near the noisy 
circle. 

“ Here comes that Talbot van Alsted,” said 
Blanche, bursting at last into a loud whisper. 
“ What a goose he is, to be sure ! Dear baby, 
it promised its mother it would n’t drink wine 
for two months. Let’s all drink with him. Tal- 
bot, my boy, just in time ! Fill your glass. 
Stosst an ! ” 

And Blanche and her attendant spirits in 
white muslin thronged around the weak boy, 
saw him charged with the three glasses that 
were all his head could stand, and sent him 
reeling home to his mother. Then they looked 
round for fresh worlds to conquer. 

“ There are the Maxwells ! ” said Miss Ingle- 
side, without lowering her voice. “ Who is 
that party in the high-necked dress ? Is she 
the schoolmistress ? Why do they have such 
people here ? Society is getting so common, 
there is no bearing it. That Emily who is 
with her is too good for that slow set. She ’s 


8 4 


Malbo7ie. 


the school-girl we heard of at Nice, or some- 
where ; she wanted to elope with somebody, 
and Phil Malbone stopped her, worse luck. 
She will be for eloping with us, before long.” 

Emilia colored scarlet, and gave a furtive 
glance at Hope, half of shame, half of triumph. 
Hope looked at Blanche with surprise, made a 
movement forward, but was restrained by the 
crowd, while the noisy damsel broke out in a 
‘different direction. 

“ How fiendishly hot it is here, though ! 
Jones junior, put your elbow through that 
window ! This champagne is boiling. What a 
tiresome time we shall have to-morrow, when 
the Frenchmen are gone ! Ah, Count, there 
you are at last ! Ready for the German ? 
Come for me? Just primed and up to any- 
thing, and so I tell you ! ” 

But as Count Posen, kissing his hand to her, 
squeezed his way through the crowd with Hal, 
to be presented to Hope, there came over 
Blanche’s young face such a mingled look of 
hatred and weariness and chagrin, that even 
her un observing friends saw it, and asked with 
tender commiseration what was up. 

The dancing recommenced. There was the 
usual array of partners, distributed by myste- 


Malbone. 


85 


rious discrepancies, like soldiers’ uniforms, so 
that all the tall drew short, and all the short 
had tall. There were the timid couples, who 
danced with trembling knees and eyes cast 
over their shoulders ; the feeble couples, who 
meandered aimlessly and got tangled in cor- 
ners ; the rash couples, who tore breathlessly 
through the rooms and brought up at last 
against the large white waistcoat of the violon- 
cello. There was the professional lady-killer, 
too supreme and indolent to dance, but sitting 
amid an admiring bevy of fair women, where 
he reared his head of raven curls, and pulled 
ceaselessly ' his black mustache. And there 
were certain young girls who, having aston- 
ished the community for a month by the low- 
ness of their dresses, now brought to bear their 
only remaining art, and struck everybody dumb 
by appearing clothed. All these came and went 
and came again, and had their day or their 
night, and danced until the robust Hope went 
home exhausted and left her more fragile cous- 
ins to dance on till morning. Indeed, it was 
no easy thing for them to tear themselves 
away ; Kate was always in demand ; Philip 
knew everybody, and had that latest aroma of 
Paris which the soul of fashion covets ; Harry 


86 


M alb one. 


had the tried endurance which befits brothers 
and lovers at balls ; while Emilia’s foreign 
court held out till morning, and one handsome 
young midshipman, in special, kept revolving 
back to her after each long orbit of separation, 
like a gold-laced comet. 

The young people lingered extravagantly 
late at that ball, for the corvette was to sail 
next day, and the girls were willing to make the 
most of it. As they came to the outer door, 
the dawn was inexpressibly beautiful, — deep 
rose melting into saffron, beneath a tremulous 
morning star. With a sudden impulse, they 
agreed to walk home, the fresh air seemed so 
delicious. Philip and Emilia went first, out- 
stripping the others. 

Passing the Jewish cemetery, Kate and Har- 
ry paused a moment. The sky was almost 
cloudless, the air was full of a thousand scents 
and songs, the rose-tints in the sky were deep- 
ening, the star paling, while a few vague clouds 
went wandering upward, and dreamed them- 
selves away. 

“ There is a grave in that cemetery,” said 
Kate, gently, “ where lovers should always be 
sitting. It lies behind that tall monument ; I 
cannot see it for the blossoming boughs. There 


Malbone. 


87 


were two young cousins who loved each other 
from childhood, but were separated, because 
Jews do not allow such unions. Neither of 
them was ever married ; and they lived to be 
very old, the one in New Orleans, the other at 
the North. In their last illnesses each dreamed 
of walking in the fields with the other, as in 
their early days ; and the telegraphic despatch- 
es that told their deaths crossed each other 
on the way. That is his monument, and her 
grave was made behind it ; there was no room 
for a stone.” 

Kate moved a step or two, that she might 
see the graves. The branches opened clear. 
What living lovers had met there, at this 
strange hour, above the dust of lovers dead ? 
She saw with amazement, and walked on quick- 
ly that Harry might not also see. 

It was Emilia who sat beside the grave, her 
dark hair drooping and dishevelled, her carna- 
tion cheek still brilliant after the night’s ex- 
citement ; and he who sat at her feet, grasping 
her hand in both of his, while his lips poured 
out passionate words to which she eagerly list- 
ened, was Philip Malbone. 

Here, upon the soil of a new nation, lay a 
spot whose associations seemed already as old 


83 


Malbone. 


as time couLd make them, — the last footprint 
of a tribe now vanished from this island for- 
ever, — the resting-place of a race whose very 
funerals would soon be no more. Each April 
the robins built their nests around these crumb- 
ling stones, each May they reared their broods, 
each June the clover blossomed, each July the 
wild strawberries grew cool and red ; all around 
was youth and life and ecstasy, and yet the 
stones bore inscriptions in an unknown lan- 
guage, and the very graves seemed dead. 

And lovelier than all the youth of Nature, 
little Emilia sat there in the early light, her 
girlish existence gliding into that drama of 
passion which is older than the buried nations, 
older than time, than death, than all things 
save life and God. 


Malbone. 


89 


VIII. 

TALKING IT OVER. 

UNT JANE was eager to hear about the 



ball, and called everybody into her break- 
fast-parlor the next morning. She was still 
hesitating about her bill of fare. 

“I wish somebody would invent a new ani- 
mal,” she burst forth. “ How those sheep 
bleated last night ! I know it was an expres- 
sion of shame for providing such tiresome 


food.” 


“You must not be so carnally minded, dear,” 
said Kate. “ You must be very good and 
grateful, and not care for your breakfast. 
Somebody says that mutton chops with wit 
are a great deal better than turtle without.” 

“ A very foolish somebody,” pronounced 
Aunt Jane. “ I have had a great deal of wit 
in my life, and very little turtle. Dear child, 
do not excite me with impossible suggestions. 
There are dropped eggs, I might have those. 
They look so beautifully, if it only were not 
necessary to eat them. Yes, I will certainly 


9 o 


Malbone. 


have dropped eggs. I think Ruth could drop 
them ; she drops everything else.” 

“ Poor little Ruth ! ” said Kate. “ Not yet 
grown up ! ” 

“ She will never grow up,” said Aunt Jane, 
“ but she thinks she is a woman ; she even 
thinks she has a lover. O that in early life I 
had provided myself with a pair of twins from 
some asylum ; then I should have had some 
one to wait on me.” 

“ Perhaps they would have been married 
too,” said Kate. 

“ They should never have been married,” re- 
torted Aunt Jane. “ They should have signed 
a paper at five years old to do no such thing. 
Yesterday I told a lady that I was enraged 
that a servant should presume to have a heart, 
and the woman took it seriously and began to 
argue with me. To think of living in a town 
where one person could be so idiotic ! Such a 
town ought to be extinguished from the uni- 
verse.” 

“ Auntie !” said Kate, sternly, “you must 
grow more charitable.” 

“ Must I ? ” said Aunt Jane ; “it will not be 
at all becoming. I have thought about it ; 
often have I weighed it in my mind whether to 


Malbone. 


91 


be monotonously lovely ; but I have always 
thrust it away. It must make life so tedious. 
It is too late for me to change, — at least, any- 
thing about me but my countenance, and that 
changes the wrong way. Yet I feel so young 
and fresh ; I look in my glass every morning 
to see if I have not a new face, but it never 
comes. I am not what is called well-favored. 
In fact, I am not favored at all. Tell me about 
the party.” 

“ What shall I tell?” said Kate. 

“ Tell me what people were there,” said Aunt 
Jane, “and how they were dressed ; who were 
the happiest and who the most miserable. I 
think I would rather hear about the most mis- 
erable, — at least, till I have my breakfast.” 

“ The most miserable person I saw,” said 
Kate, “ was Mrs. Meredith. It was very amus- 
ing to hear her and Hope talk at cross-pur- 
poses. You know her daughter Helen is in 
Paris, and the mother seemed very sad about 
her. A lady was asking if something or other 
were true; ‘Too true,’ said Mrs. Meredith; 

‘ with every opportunity she has had no real 
success. It was not the poor child’s fault. 
She was properly presented ; but as yet she 
has had no success at all.’ 


92 


Malbone . 


“Hope looked up, full of sympathy. She 
thought Helen must be some disappointed 
school-teacher, and felt an interest in her im- 
mediately. ‘ Will there not be another exam- 
ination ? ’ she asked. ‘ What an odd phrase/ 
said Mrs. Meredith, looking rather disdainfully 
at Hope. ‘No, I suppose we must give it up, 
if that is what you mean. The only remain- 
ing chance is in the skating. I had particular 
attention paid to Helen’s skating on that very 
account. How happy shall I be, if my fore- 
sight is rewarded ! ’ 

“ Hope thought this meant physical educa- 
tion, to be sure, and fancied that handsome 
Helen Meredith opening a school for calisthen- 
ics in Paris ! Luckily she did not say any- 
thing. Then the other lady said, solemnly, 
‘ My dear Mrs. Meredith, it is too true. No 
one can tell how things will turn out in soci- 
ety. How often do we see girls who were not 
looked at in America, and yet have a gi;eat 
success in Paris ; then other girls go out who 
were here very much admired, and they have 
no success at all.’ 

“ Hope understood it all then, but she took 
it very calmly. I was so indignant, I could 
hardly help speaking. I wanted to say that it 


Malbo7ie. 


93 


was outrageous. The idea of American moth- 
ers training their children for exhibition before 
what everybody calls the most corrupt court in 
Europe ! Then if they can catch the eye of 
the Emperor or the Empress by their faces or 
their paces, that is called success ! ” 

“ Good Americans when they die go to 
Paris,” said Philip, “ so says the oracle. 
Naughty Americans try it prematurely, and 
go while they are alive. Then Paris casts 
them out, and when they come back, their 
French disrepute is their stock in trade.” 

“ I think,” said the cheerful Hope, “ that it 
is not quite so bad.” Hope always thought 
things not so bad. She went on. “I was very 
dull not to know what Mrs. Meredith was talk- 
ing about. Helen Meredith is a warm-hearted, 
generous girl, and will not go far wrong, though 
her mother is not as wise as she is well-bred. 
But Kate forgets that the few hundred people 
one sees here or at Paris do not represent the 
nation, after all.” 

“ The most influential part of it,” said 
Emilia. 

“ Are you sure, dear ? ” said her sister. “ I 
do not think they influence it half so much as 
a great many people who are too busy to go to 


94 


Malbone . 


either place. I always remember those hun- 
dred girls at the Normal School, and that they 
were not at all like Mrs. Meredith, nor would 
they care to be like her, any more than she 
would wish to be like them.” 

“ They have not had - the same advantages,” 
said Emilia. 

“Nor the same disadvantages,” said Hope. 
“ Some of them are not so well bred, and none 
of them speak French so well, for she speaks 
exquisitely. But in all that belongs to real 
training of the mind, they seem to me supe- 
rior, and that is why I think they will have 
more influence.” 

“ None of them are rich, though, I suppose,” 
said Emilia, “ nor of very nice families, or they 
would not be teachers. So they will not be so 
prominent in society.” 

“ But they may yet become very prominent 
in society,” said Hope, — “ they or their pupils 
or their children. At any rate, it is as certain 
that the noblest lives will have most influence 
in the end, as that two and two make four.” 

“ Is that certain ? ” said Philip. “ Perhaps 
there are worlds where two and two do not 
make just that desirable amount .” 

“I trust there are,” said Aunt Jane. “Per- 


Malbone. 


95 


haps I was intended to be born in one of them, 
and that is why my housekeeping accounts 
never add up.” 

Here Hope was called away, and Emilia 
saucily murmured, Sour grapes ! ” 

“ Not a bit of it ! ” cried Kate, indignantly. 
“ Hope might have anything in society she 
wishes, if she would only give up some of her 
own plans, and let me choose her dresses, and 
her rich uncles pay for them. Count Posen 
told me, only yesterday, that there was not a 
girl in Oldport with such an air as hers.” 

“ Not Kate herself? ” said Emilia, slyly. 

“ I ? ” said Kate. “ What am I ? A silly 
chit of a thing, with about a dozen ideas in my 
head, nearly every one of which was planted 
there by Hope. I like the nonsense of the 
world very well as it is, and without her I 
should have cared for nothing else. Count 
Posen asked me the other day, which country 
produced on the whole the most womanly 
women, France or America. He is one of the 
few foreigners who expect a rational answer. 
So I told him that I knew very little of French- 
women personally, but that I had read French 
novels ever since I was born, and there was 
not a woman worthy to be compared with 


96 


Malbone. 


Hope in any of them, except Consuelo, and 
even she told lies.” 

“ Do not begin upon Hope,” said Aunt 
Jane. “It is the only subject on which Kate 
can be tedious. • Tell me about the dresses. 
Were people over-dressed or under-dressed ? ” 

“ Under-dressed,” said Phil. “ Miss Ingle- 
side had a half-inch strip of muslin over her 
shoulder.” 

Here Philip followed Hope out of the room, 
and Emilia presently followed him. 

“Tell on!” said Aunt Jane. “How did 
Philip enjoy himself?” 

“ He is easily amused, you know,” said Kate. 
“ He likes to observe people, and to shoot folly 
as it flies.” 

“ It does not fly,” retorted the elder lady. 
“I wish it did. You can shoot it sitting, at 
least where Philip is.” 

“Auntie,” said Kate, “tell me truly your 
objection to Philip. I think you did not like 
his parents. Had he not a good mother ? ” 

/ “She was good,” said Aunt Jane, reluc- 
tantly, “but it was that kind of goodness 
which is quite offensive.” 

“ And did you know his father well ? ” 

“ Know him ! ” exclaimed Aunt Jane. “ I 


Malbone. 97 

should think I did. I have sat up all night to 
hate him.” 

“That was very wrong,” said Kate, deci- 
sively. “You do not mean that. You only 
mean that you did not admire him very 
much.” 

“ I never admired a dozen people in my life, 
Kate. I once made a list of them. There 
were six women, three men, and a Newfound- 
land dog.” 

“ What happened ? ” said Kate. “ The Is- 
raelites died after Pharaoh, or somebody, 
numbered them. Did anything happen to 
yours ? ” 

“It was worse with mine,” said Aunt Jane. 
“ I grew tired of some and others I forgot, till 
at last there was nobody left but the dog, and 
he died.” 

“ Was Philip’s father one of them ? ” 

“ No.” 

“Tell me about him,” said Kate, firmly. 

“ Ruth,” said the elder lady, as her young 
handmaiden passed the door with her wonted 
demureness, “ come here ; no, get me a glass 
of water. Kate ! I shall die of that girl. She 
does some idiotic thing, and then she looks 
in here with that contented, beaming look. 

5 


G 


98 


Malbone. 


There is an air of baseless happiness about 
her that drives me nearly frantic.” 

“Never mind about that/’ persisted Kate. 
“Tell me about Philip’s father. What was 
the matter with him ? ” 

“My dear,” Aunt Jane at last answered, — 
with that fearful moderation to which she 
usually resorted when even her stock of su- 
perlatives was exhausted, — “he belonged to 
a family for whom truth possessed even less 
than the usual attractions.” 

This neat epitaph implied the erection of a 
final tombstone over the whole race, and Kate 
asked no more. 

Meantime Malbone sat at the western door 
with Harry, and was running on with one 
of his tirades, half jest, half earnest, against 
American society. 

“In America,” he said, “everything which 
does not tend to money is thought to be 
wasted, as our Quaker neighbor thinks the 
children’s croquet-ground wasted, because it 
is not a potato field.” 

“ Not just ! ” cried Harry. “ Nowhere is 
there more respect for those who give their 
lives to intellectual pursuits.” 

“ What are intellectual pursuits ? ” said 


Malbone . 


99 


Philip. “ Editing daily newspapers ? Teach- 
ing arithmetic to children ? I see no others 
flourishing hereabouts.” 

“ Science and literature,” answered Harry. 

“ Who. cares for literature in America,” said 
Philip, “ after a man rises three inches above 
the newspaper level ? Nobody reads Thoreau ; 
only an insignificant fraction read Emerson, 
or even Hawthorne. The majority of people 
have hardly even heard their names. What 
inducement has a writer ? Nobody has any 
weight in America who is not in Congress, 
and nobody gets into Congress without the 
necessity of bribing or button-holing men 
whom he despises.” 

“ But you do not care for public life ? ” said 
Harry. 

“No,” said Malbone, “ therefore this does not 
trouble me, but it troubles you. I am con- 
tent. My digestion is goo,d. I can always 
amuse myself. Why are you not satisfied ? ” 

“Because you are not,” said Harry. “You 
are dissatisfied with men, and so you care 
chiefly to amuse yourself with women and 
children.” 

“ I dare say,” said Malbone, carelessly. 
“They are usually less ungraceful and talk 
better grammar.” 


100 


Malbone. 


“ But American life does not mean grace 
nor grammar. We are all living for the 
future. Rough work now, and the graces 
by and by.” 

“ That is what we Americans always say,” 
retorted Philip. “ Everything is in the future. 
What guaranty have we for that future ? I see 
none. We make no progress towards the 
higher arts, except in greater quantities of 
mediocrity. We sell larger editions of poor 
books. Our artists fill larger frames and travel 
farther for materials; but a ten-inch canvas 
would tell all they have to say.” 

“ The wrong point of view,” said Hal. “ If 
you begin with high art, you begin at the 
wrong end. The first essential for any nation 
is to put the mass of the people above the 
reach of want. We are all usefully employed, 
if we contribute to that.” 

“ So is the cook usefully employed while 
preparing dinner,” said Philip. “ Neverthe- 
less, I do not wish to live in the kitchen.” 

“Yet you always admire your own country,” 
said Harry, “ so long as you are in Europe.” 

“No doubt,” said Philip. “ I do not object to 
the kitchen at that distance. And to tell the 
truth, America looks well from Europe. No 


M alb one. 


IOI 


culture, no art seems so noble as this far-off 
spectacle of a self-governing people. The en- 
thusiasm lasts till one’s return. Then there 
seems nothing here but to work hard and 
keep out of mischief.” 

“ That is something,” said Harry. 

“ A good deal in America,” said Phil. 
“We talk about the immorality of older 
countries. Did you ever notice that no class 
of men are so apt to take to drinking as 
highly cultivated Americans ? It is a very 
demoralizing position, when one’s tastes out- 
grow one’s surroundings. Positively, I think 
a man is more excusable for coveting his 
neighbor’s wife in America than in Europe, 
because there is so little else to covet.” 

“ Malbone ! ” said Hal, “ what has’ got into 
you ? Do you know what things you are say- 
ing?” 

“ Perfectly,” was the unconcerned reply. “ I 
am not arguing ; I am only testifying. I 
know that in Paris, for instance, I myself have 
no temptations. Art and history are so de- 
lightful, I absolutely do not care for the so- 
ciety even of women ; but here, where there 
is nothing to do, one must have some stimu- 
lus, and for me, who hate drinking, they are, 
at least, a more refined excitement.” 


102 


Malbone. 


“ More dangerous,” said Hal. “ Infinitely 
more dangerous, in the morbid way in which 
you look at life. What have these sickly fan- 
cies to do with the career that opens to every 
brave man in a great nation ? ” 

“ They have everything to do with it, and 
there are many for whom there is no career. 
As the nation develops, it must produce men 
of high culture. Now there is no place for 
them except as bookkeepers or pedagogues or 
newspaper reporters. Meantime the incessant 
unintellectual activity is only a sublime bore 
to those who stand aside.” 

“Then why stand aside?” persisted the 
downright Harry. * 

“ I have no place in it but a lounging- 
place,” said Malbone. “ I do not wish to 
chop blocks with a razor. I envy those men, 
born mere Americans, with no ambition in 
life but to * swing a railroad ’ as they say at 
the West. Every morning I hope to wake up 
like them in the fear of God and the love of 
money.” 

“You may as well stop,” said Harry, color- 
ing a little. “ Malbone, you used to be my 
ideal man in my boyhood, but ” — 

“ I am glad we have got beyond that,” inter- 


Malbone. 


103 


rupted the other, cheerily, “ I am only an idler 
in the land. Meanwhile, I have my little in- 
terests, — read, write, sketch — ” 

“ Flirt ? ” put in Hal, with growing displeas- 
ure. 

“Not now,” said Phil, patting his shoulder, 
with imperturbable good-nature. “ Our be- 
loved has cured me of that. He who has 
won the pearl dives no more.” 

“ Do not let us speak of Hope,” said Harry. 
“Everything that you have been asserting 
Hope’s daily life disproves.” 

“ That may be,” answered Malbone, heartily. 
“ But, Hal, I never flirted ; I always despised 
it. It was always a grande passion with me, 
or what I took for such. I loved to be loved, 
I suppose ; and there was always something 
new and fascinating to be explored in a human 
heart, that is, a woman’s.” 

“ Some new temple to profane ? ” asked 
Hal, severely. 

“ Never ! ” said Philip. “ I never profaned 
it. If I deceived, I shared the deception, at 
least for a time ; and, as for sensuality, I had 
none in me.” 

“ Did you have nothing worse ? Rousseau 
ends where Tom Jones begins.” 


104 


Malbone . 


■“My temperament saved me,” said Philip. 
“A woman is not a woman to me, without 
personal refinement.” 

“Just what Rousseau said,” replied Harry. 

“I act upon it,” answered Malbone. “No 
one dislikes Blanche Ingleside and her demi 
monde more than I.” 

“You ought not,” was the retort. “You 
help to 'bring other girls to her level.” 

“ Whom ? ” said Malbone, startled. 

“ Emilia ” 

“ Emilia ? ” repeated the other, coloring 
crimson. “I, who have warned her against 
Blanche’s society.” 

“ And have left her no other resource,” said 
Harry, coloring still more. “Malbone, you 
have gained (unconsciously of course) too 
much power over that girl, and the only effect 
of it is, to keep her in perpetual excitement. 
So she seeks Blanche, as she would any other 
strong stimulant. Hope does not seem to 
have discovered this, but Kate has, and I 
have.” 

Hope came in, and Harry went out. The 
next day he came to Philip and apologized 
most warmly for his unjust and inconsiderate 
words. Malbone, always generous, bade him 


Malbone. 


105 


think no more about it, and Harry for that 
day reverted strongly to his first faith. “ So 
noble, so high-toned,” he said to Kate. In- 
deed, a man never appears more magnanimous 
than in forgiving a friend who has told him 
the truth. 


5 * 


» 


Malbone. 


io6 


IX. 

DANGEROUS WAYS. 

I T was true enough what Harry had said. 

Philip Malbone’s was that perilous Rous- 
Seau-like temperament, neither sincere enough 
for safety, nor false enough to alarm ; the win- 
ning tenderness that thrills and softens at the 
mere neighborhood of a woman, and fascinates 
by its reality those whom no hypocrisy can 
deceive. It was a nature half amiable, half 
voluptuous, that disarmed others, seeming it- 
self unarmed. He was never wholly ennobled 
by passion, for it never touched him deeply 
enough ; and, on the other hand, he was not 
hardened by the habitual attitude of passion, 
for he was never really insincere. Sometimes 
it seemed as if nothing stood between him and 
utter profligacy but a little indolence, a little 
kindness, and a good deal of caution. 

“ There seems no such thing as serious re- 
pentance in me,” he had once said to Kate, 
two years before, when she had upbraided him 
with some desperate flirtation which had 


Malbone. 


107 


looked as if he would carry it as far as gentle- 
men did under King Charles II. “How does 
remorse begin ? ” 

“ Where you are beginning,” said Kate. 

“ I do not perceive that,” he answered. 
“ My conscience seems, after all, to be only a 
form of good-nature. I like to be stirred by 
emotion, I suppose, and I like to study char- 
acter. But I can always stop when it is evi- 
dent that I shall cause pain to somebody. Is 
there any other motive ? ” 

“ In other words,” said she, “ you apply the 
match, and then turn your back on the burn- 
ing house.” 

Philip colored. “ How unjust you are ! Of 
course, we all like to play with fire, but I 
always put it out before it can spread. Do 
you think I have no feeling?” 

Kate stopped there, I suppose. Even she 
always stopped soon, if she undertook to in- 
terfere with Malbone. This charming Alcibi- 
ades always convinced them, after the wrest- 
ling was over, that he had not been thrown. 

The only exception to this was in the case 
of Aunt Jane. If she had anything in com- 
mon with Philip, — and there was a certain 
element of ingenuous unconsciousness in which 


io8 


Malbone. 


they were not so far unlike, — it only placed 
them in the more complete antagonism. Per- 
haps if two beings were in absolutely no respect 
alike, they never could meet even for purposes 
of hostility ; there must be some common 
ground from which the aversion may proceed. 
Moreover, in this case Aunt Jane utterly dis- 
believed in Malbone because she had reason to 
disbelieve in his father, and the better she knew 
the son the more she disliked the father retro- 
spectively. 

Philip was apt to be very heedless of such 
aversions, — indeed, he had few to heed, — but 
it was apparent that Aunt Jane was the only 
person with whom he was not quite at ease. 
Still, the solicitude did not trouble him very 
much, for he instinctively knew that it was not 
his particular actions which vexed her, so much 
as his very temperament and atmosphere, — 
things not to be changed. So he usually went 
his way; and if he sometimes felt one of her 
sharp retorts, could laugh it off that day and 
sleep it off before the next morning. 

For you may be sure that Philip was very 
little troubled by inconvenient memories. He 
never had to affect forgetfulness of anything. 
The past slid from him so easily, he forgot 


Malbone. 


109 


even to try to forget. He liked to quote from 
Emerson, “What have I to do with repent- 
ance ? ” “ What have my yesterday’s errors,” 

he would say, “ to do with the life of to-day ? ” 

“Everything,” interrupted Aunt Jane, “for 
you will repeat them to-day, if you can.” 

“ Not at all,” persisted he, accepting as con- 
versation what she meant as a stab. “ I may, 
indeed, commit greater errors,” — here she 
grimly nodded, as if she had no doubt of it, — 
“but never just the same. To-day must take 
thought for itself.” 

“ I wish it would,” she said, gently, and then 
went on with her own thoughts while he was 
silent. Presently she broke out again in her 
impulsive way. 

“ Depend upon it,” she said, “ there is very 
little direct retribution in this world.” 

Phil looked up, quite pleased at her-indors- 
ing one of his favorite views. She looked, as 
she always did, indignant at having said any- 
thing to please him. 

“Yes,” said she, “it is the indirect retribu- 
tion that crushes. I ’ve seen enough of that, 
God knows. Kate, give me my thimble.” 

Malbone had that smooth elasticity of sur- 
face which made even Aunt Jane’s strong fin- 


no 


Malbone. 


gers slip from him as they might from a fish, or 
from the soft, gelatinous stem of the water-tar- 
get. Even in this case he only laughed good- 
naturedly, and went out, whistling like a 
mocking-bird, to call the children round him. 

Toward the more wayward and impulsive 
Emilia the good lady was far more merciful. 
With all Aunt Jane’s formidable keenness, she 
was a little apt to be disarmed by youth and 
beauty, and had no very stern retributions 
except for those past middle age. Emilia es- 
pecially charmed her while she repelled. There 
was no getting beyond a certain point with 
this strange girl, any more than with Philip ; 
but her depths tantalized, while his apparent 
shallows were only vexatious. Emilia was usu- 
ally sweet, winning, cordial, and seemed ready 
to glide into one’s heart as softly as she glided 
into the room ; she liked to please, and found 
it very easy. Yet she left the impression that 
this smooth and delicate loveliness went but 
an inch beyond the surface, like the soft, thin 
foam that enamels yonder tract of ocean, be- 
longs to it, is a part of it, yet is, after all, but a 
bequest of tempests, and covers only a dark 
abyss of crossing currents and desolate tangles 
of rootless kelp. Everybody was drawn to 


Malbone. 


hi 


her, yet not a soul took any comfort in her. 
Her very voice had in it a despairing sweet- 
ness, that seemed far in advance of her actual 
history ; it was an anticipated Miserere, a per- 
petual dirge, where nothing had yet gone 
down. So Aunt Jane, who was wont to be 
perfectly decisive in her treatment of every 
human being, was fluctuating and inconsistent 
with Emilia. She could not help being fasci- 
nated by the motherless child, and yet scorned 
herself for even the doubting love she gave. 

“ Only think, auntie,” said Kate, “ how you 
kissed Emilia, yesterday ! ” 

“ Of course I did,” she remorsefully owned. 
“ I have kissed her a great many times too 
often. I never will kiss her again. There is 
nothing but sorrow to be found in loving her, 
and her heart is no larger than her feet. To- 
day she was not even pretty ! If it were not 
for her voice, I think I should never wish to 
see her again.” 

But when that soft, pleading voice came 
once more, and Emilia asked perhaps for lun- 
cheon, in tones fit for Ophelia, Aunt Jane in- 
stantly yielded. One might as well have tried 
to enforce indignation against the Babes in the 
Wood. 


1 12 Malbone. 

This perpetual mute appeal was further 
strengthened by a peculiar physical habit in 
Emilia, which first alarmed the household, but 
soon ceased to inspire terror. She fainted 
very easily, and had attacks at long intervals 
akin to faintness, and lasting for several hours. 
The physicians pronounced them cataleptic in 
their nature, saying that they brought no dan- 
ger, and that she would certainly outgrow 
them. They were sometimes produced by fa- 
tigue, sometimes by excitement, but they 
brought no agitation with them, nor any de- 
velopment of abnormal powers. They simply 
wrapped her in a profound repose, from which 
no effort could rouse her, till the trance passed 
by. Her eyes gradually closed, her voice died 
away, and all movement ceased, save that her 
eyelids sometimes trembled without opening, 
and sweet evanescent expressions chased each 
other across her face, — the shadows of thoughts 
^unseen. For a time she seemed to distinguish 
the touch of different persons by preference or 
pain ; but soon even this sign of recognition 
vanished, and the household could only wait 
and watch, while she sank into deeper and yet 
deeper repose. 

There was something inexpressibly sweet, 


Malbone. 


”3 

appealing, and touching in this impenetrable 
slumber, when it was at its deepest. She 
looked so young, so delicate, so lovely ; it was 
as if she had entered into a shrine, and some 
sacred curtain had been dropped to shield her 
from all the cares and perplexities of life. She 
lived, she breathed, and yet all the storms of 
life could but beat against her powerless, as 
the waves beat on the shore. Safe in this 
beautiful semblance of death, — her pulse a 
little accelerated, her rich color only softened, 
her eyelids drooping, her exquisite mouth 
curved into the sweetness it had lacked in 
waking, — she lay unconscious and supreme, 
the temporary monarch of the household, en- 
tranced upon her throne. A few hours having 
passed, she suddenly waked, and was a self- 
willed, passionate girl once more. When she 
spoke, it was with a voice wholly natural ; she 
had no recollection of what had happened, and 
no curiosity to learn. 


H 


Malbone. 


1 14 


X. 

REMONSTRANCES. 

I T had been a lovely summer day, with a 
tinge of autumnal coolness toward night- 
fall, ending in what Aunt Jane called a “ quince- 
jelly sunset.” Kate and Emilia sat upon the 
Blue Rocks, earnestly talking. 

“ Promise, Emilia ! ” said Kate. 

Emilia said nothing. 

“ Remember,” continued Kate, “ he is Hope’s 
betrothed. Promise, promise, promise ! ” 
Emilia looked into Kate’s face and saw it 
flushed with a generous eagerness, that called 
forth an answering look in her. She tried to 
speak, and the words died into silence. There 
was a pause, while each watched the other. 

When one soul is grappling with another for 
life, such silence may last an instant too long ; 
and Kate soon felt her grasp slipping. Mo- 
mentarily the spell relaxed. Other thoughts 
swelled up, and Emilia’s eyes began to wander ; 
delicious memories stole in, of walks through 
blossoming paths with Malbone, — of lingering 


Malbone. 


115 


steps, half-stifled words and sentences left un- 
finished'; — then, alas! of passionate caresses, 
— other blossoming paths that only showed 
the way to sin, but had never quite led her 
there, she fancied. There was so much to tell, 
more than could ever be told to Kate, infinite- 
ly more than could ever be explained or justi- 
fied. Moment by moment, farther and farther 
strayed the wandering thoughts, and when the 
poor child looked in Kate’s face again, the mist 
between them seemed to have grown wide and 
dense, as if neither eyes nor words nor hands 
could ever meet again. When she spoke it 
was to say something evasive and unimportant, 
and her voice was as one from the grave. 

In truth, Philip had given Emilia his heart 
to play with at- Neuchatel, that he might be- 
guile her from an attachment • they had all 
regretted. The device succeeded. The toy 
once in her hand, the passionate girl had kept 
it, had clung to him with all her might ; he 
could not shake her off. Nor was this the 
worst, for to his dismay he found himself re- 
sponding to her love with a self-abandonment 
of ardor for which all former loves had been 
but a cool preparation. He had not intended 
this ; it seemed hardly his fault : his intentions 


ii 6 


Malbone . 


had been good, or at least not bad. This 
piquant and wonderful fruit of nature, this 
girlish soul, he had merely touched it and it 
was his. Its mere fragrance was intoxicating. 
Good God ! what should he do with it ? 

No clear answer coming, he had drifted 
on with that terrible facility for which years 
of self-indulged emotion had prepared him. 
Each step, while it was intended to be the last, 
only made some other last step needful. 

He had begun wrong, for he had concealed 
his engagement, fancying that he could secure 
a stronger influence over this young girl with- 
out the knowledge. He had come to her 
simply as a friend of her Transatlantic kin- 
dred ; and she, who was always rather indiffer- 
ent to them, asked no questions, nor made the 
discovery till too late. Then, indeed, she had 
burst upon him with an impetuous despair that 
had alarmed him. He feared, not that she 
would do herself any violence, for she had a 
childish dread of death, but that she would 
show some desperate animosity toward Hope, 
whenever they should meet. After a long 
struggle, he had touched, not her sense of jus- 
tice, for she had none, but her love for him ; 
he had aroused her tenderness and her pride. 


Malbone. 


ii 7 


Without his actual assurance, she yet believed 
that he would release himself in some way 
from his betrothal, and love only her. 

Malbone had fortunately great control over 
Emilia when near her, and could thus keep the 
sight of this stormy passion from the pure and 
unconscious Hope. But a new distress opened 
before him, from the time when he again 
touched Hope’s hand. The close intercourse 
of the voyage had given him for the time 
almost a surfeit of the hot-house atmosphere 
of Emilia’s love. The first contact of Hope’s 
cool, smooth fingers, the soft light of her clear 
eyes, the breezy grace of her motions, the rose- 
odors that clung around her, brought back all 
his early passion. Apart from this voluptuous- 
ness of the heart into which he had fallen, 
Malbone’s was a simple and unspoiled nature ; 
he had no vices, and had always won populari- 
ty too easily to be obliged to stoop for it ; so 
all that was noblest in him paid allegiance to 
Hope. From the moment they again met, his 
wayward heart reverted to her. He had been 
in a dream, he said to himself; he would con- 
quer it and be only hers ; he would go away 
with her into the forests and green fields she 
loved, or he would share in the life of useful- 


n8 Malbone. 

ness for which she yearned. But then, what 
was he to do with this little waif from the 
heart’s tropics, — once tampered with, in an 
hour of mad dalliance, and now adhering in- 
separably to his life ? Supposing him ready 
to separate from her, could she be detached 
from him ? 

Kate’s anxieties, when she at last hinted 
them to Malbone, only sent him further into 
revery. “ How is it,” he asked himself, “ that 
when I only sought to love and be loved, I 
have thus entangled myself in the fate of 
others ? How is one’s heart to be governed ? 
Is there any such governing ? Mile. Clairon 
complained that, so soon as she became seri- 
ously attached to any one, she was sure to 
meet somebody else whom she liked better. 
Have human hearts,” he said, “ or at least, has 
my heart, no more stability than this ? ” 

It did not help the matter when Emilia went 
to stay awhile with Mrs. Meredith. The event 
came about in this way. Hope and Kate had 
been to a dinner-party, and were as usual re- 
citing their experiences to Aunt Jane. 

“ Was it pleasant ? ” said that sympathetic 
lady. 

“ It was one of those dreadfully dark dining- 


Malbone. 


119 

rooms,” said Hope, seating herself at the open 
window. 

“Why do they make them look so like 
tombs ? ” said Kate. 

“ Because,” said her aunt, “ most Americans 
pass from them to the tomb, after eating such 
indigestible things. There is a wish for a gen- 
tle transition.” 

“Aunt Jane,” said Hope, “Mrs. Meredith 
asks to have a little visit from Emilia. Do you 
think she had better go ? ” 

“Mrs. Meredith?” asked Aunt Jane. “Is 
that woman alive yet ? ” 

“ Why, auntie ! ” said Kate. “ We were talk- 
ing about her only a week ago.” 

“Perhaps so,” conceded Aunt Jane, reluc- 
tantly. “ But it seems to me she has great 
length of days ! ” 

“How very improperly you are talking, 
dear!” said Kate. “She is not more than 
forty, and you are — ” 

“Fifty-four,” interrupted the other. 

“ Then she has not seen nearly so many days 
as you.” 

“ But they are such long days ! That is 
what L must have meant. One of her days is 
as long as three of mine. She is so tiresome ! ” 


120 


Malbone. 


“ She does not tire you very often,” said 
Kate. 

“She comes once a year,” said Aunt Jane. 
“And then it is not to see me. She comes 
out of respect to the memory of my great-aunt, 
with whom Talleyrand fell in love, when he 
was in America, before Mrs. Meredith was 
born. Yes, Emilia may as well go.” 

So Emilia went. To provide her with com- 
panionship, Mrs. Meredith kindly had Blanche 
Ingleside to stay there also. Blanche stayed 
at different houses a good deal. To do her 
justice, she was very good company, when put 
upon her best behavior, and beyond the reach 
of her demure mamma. She was always in 
spirits, often good-natured, and kept everything 
in lively motion, you may be sure. She found 
it not unpleasant, in rich houses, to escape some 
of those little domestic parsimonies which the 
world saw not in her own ; and to secure this 
felicity she could sometimes lay great restraints 
upon herself, for as much as twenty-four hours. 
She seemed a little out of place, certainly, 
amid the precise proprieties of Mrs. Mere- 
dith’s establishment. But Blanche and her 
mother still held their place in society,* and it 
was nothing to Mrs. Meredith who came to 


Malbone . 


12 1 


her doors, but only from what other doors 
they came. 

She would have liked to see all “ the best 
houses ” connected by secret galleries or under- 
ground passages, of which she and a few others 
should hold the keys. A guest properly pre- 
sented could then go the rounds of all uner- 
ringly, leaving his card at each, while improper 
acquaintances in vain howled for admission at 
the outer wall. For the rest, her ideal of so- 
cial happiness was a series of perfectly ordered 
entertainments, at each of which there should 
be precisely the same guests, the same topics, 
the same supper, and the same ennui. 


6 


122 


Malbone. 


XI. 

DESCENSUS AVERNI. 

M ALBONE stood one morning on the 
pier behind the house. A two days’ 
fog was dispersing. The southwest breeze 
rippled the deep blue water ; sailboats, blue, 
red, and green, were darting about like white- 
winged butterflies ; sloops passed and repassed, 
cutting the air with the white and slender 
points of their gaff-topsails. The liberated 
sunbeams spread and penetrated everywhere, 
and even came up to play (reflected from the 
water) beneath the shadowy, overhanging 
counters of dark vessels. Beyond, the atmos- 
phere was still busy in rolling away its vapors, 
brushing the last gray fringes from the low 
hills, and leaving over them only the thinnest 
aerial veil. Farther down the bay, the pale 
tower of the crumbling fort was now shrouded, 
now revealed, then hung with floating lines of 
vapor as with banners. 

Hope came down on the pier to Malbone, 
who was looking at the boats. He saw with 


Malbone. 


123 


surprise that her calm brow was a little cloud- 
ed, her lips compressed, and her eyes full of 
tears. 

“ Philip,” she said, abruptly, “do you love 
me ? ” 

“ Do you doubt it ? ” said he, smiling, a little 
uneasily. 

Fixing her eyes upon him, she said, more 
seriously: “There is a more important ques- 
tion, Philip. Tell me truly, do you care about 
Emilia ? ” 

He started at the words, and looked eagerly 
in her face for an explanation. Her expres- 
sion only showed the most anxious solicitude. 

For one moment the wild impulse came up 
in his mind to put an entire trust in this truth- 
ful woman, and tell her all. Then the habit of 
concealment came back to him, the dull hope- 
lessness of a divided duty, and the impossibil- 
ity of explanations. How could he justify 
himself to her when he did not really know 
himself? So he merely said, “Yes.” 

“ She is your sister,” he added, in an explan- 
atory tone, after a pause ; and despised him- 
self for the subterfuge. It is amazing how 
long a man may be false in action before he 
ceases to shrink from being false in words. 


124 


Malbone . 


“Philip,” said the unsuspecting Hope, “I 
knew that you cared about her. I have seen 
you look at her with so much affection ; and 
then again I have seen you look cold and 
almost stern. She notices it, I am sure she 
does, this changeableness. But this is not 
why I ask the question. I think you must 
have seen something else that I have been 
observing, and if you care about her, even for 
my sake, it is enough.” 

Here Philip started, and felt relieved. 

“You must be her friend,” continued Hope, 
eagerly. “ She has changed her whole man- 
ner and habits very fast. Blanche Ingleside 
and that set seem to have wholly controlled 
her, and there is something reckless in all her 
ways. You are the only person who can help 
her.” 

“How?” 

u I do not know how,” said Hope, almost 
impatiently. “You know how. You have 
wonderful influence. You saved her before, 
and will do it again. I put her in your 
hands.” 

“ What can I do for her ? ” asked he, with a 
strange mingling of terror and delight. 

“Everything,” said she. “If she has your 


Malbone. 


125 


society, she will not care for those people, so 
much her inferiors in character. Devote your- 
self to her for a time.” 

“ And leave you ? ■” said Philip, hesitatingly. 

“Anything, anything,” said she. “If I do 
not see you for a month, I can bear it. Only 
promise me two things. First, that you will 
go to her this very day. She dines with Mrs. 
Ingleside.” 

Philip agreed. 

“Then,” said Hope, with saddened tones, 
“you must not say it was I who sent ypu. 
Indeed you must not. That would spoil all. 
Let her think that your own impulse leads 
you, and then she will yield. I know Emilia 
enough for that.” 

Malbone paused, half in ecstasy, half in dis- 
may. Were all the events of life combining to 
ruin or to save him ? This young girl, whom 
he so passionately loved, was she to be thrust 
back into his arms, and was he to be told to 
clasp her and be silent ? And that by Hope, 
and in the name of duty ? 

It seemed a strange position, even for him 
who was so eager for fresh experiences and 
difficult combinations. At Hope’s appeal he 
was to risk Hope’s peace forever ; he was to 


126 


Malbone. 


make her sweet sisterly affection its own exe- 
cutioner. In obedience to her love he must 
revive Emilia’s. The tender intercourse which 
he had been trying to renounce as a crime 
must be rebaptized as duty. Was ever a man 
placed, he thought, in a position so inextri- 
cable, so disastrous ? What could he offer 
Emilia ? How could he explain to her his 
position ? He could not even tell her that 
it was at Hope’s command he sought her. 

He who is summoned to rescue a drowning 
man, knowing that he himself may go down 
with that inevitable clutch around his neck, is 
placed in some such situation as Philip’s. Yet 
Hope had appealed to him so simply, had 
trusted him so nobly ! Suppose that, by any 
self-control, or wisdom, or unexpected aid of 
Heaven, he could serve both her and Emilia, 
was it not his duty ? What if it should prove 
that he was right in loving them both, and 
had only erred when he cursed himself for 
tampering with their destinies? Perhaps, 
after all, the Divine Love had been guiding 
him, and at some appointed signal all these 
complications were to be cleared, and he and 
his various loves were somehow to be inge- 
niously provided for, and all be made happy 
ever after. 


M alb one. 


127 


He really grew quite tender and devout 
over these meditations. Phil was not a con- 
ceited fellow, by any means, but he had been 
so often told by women that their love fdr him 
had been a blessing to their souls, that he 
quite acquiesced in being a providential agent 
in that particular direction. Considered as a 
form of self-sacrifice, it was not without its 
pleasures. 

Malbone drove that afternoon to Mrs. Ingle- 
side’s charming abode, whither a few ladies 
were wont to resort, and a great many gen- 
tlemen. He timed his call between the hours 
of dining and driving, and made sure that 
Emilia had not yet emerged. Two or three 
equipages beside his own were in waiting at the 
gate, and gay voices resounded from the house. 
A servant received him at the door, and taking 
him for a tardy guest, ushered him at once in- 
to the dining-room. He was indifferent to 
this, for he had been too often sought as a 
guest by Mrs. Ingleside to stand on any cere- 
mony beneath her roof. 

That fair hostess, in all the beauty of her 
shoulders, rose to greet him, from a table 
where six or eight guests yet lingered over 
flowers and wine. The gentlemen were smok- 


128 


Malbone. 


ing, and some of the ladies were trying to 
look at ease with cigarettes. Malbone knew 
the whole company, and greeted them with 
his accustomed ease, fie would not have 
been embarrassed if they had been the Forty 
Thieves. Some of them, indeed, were not so 
far removed from that fabled band, only it was 
their fortunes, instead of themselves, that lay 
in the jars of oil. 

“You find us all here,’ 1 said Mrs. Ingleside, 
sweetly. “ We will wait till the gentlemen 
finish their cigars, before driving.” 

“ Count me in, please,” said Blanche, in her 
usual vein of frankness. “ Unless mamma 
wishes me to conclude my weed on the Av- 
enue. It would be fun, though. Fancy the 
dismay of the Frenchmen and the dowagers !” 

“And old Lambert,” said one of the other 
girls, delightedly. 

“Yes,” said Blanche. “The elderly party 
from the rural districts, who talks to us about 
the domestic virtues of the wife of his youth.” 

“ Thinks women should cruise with a broom 
at their mast-heads, like Admiral somebody in 
England,” said another damsel, who was roll- 
ing a cigarette for a midshipman. 

“You -see we do not follow the English 


Malbone . 


129 


styk,” said the smooth hostess to Philip. 
“ Ladies retiring after dinner ! After all, it 
is a coarse practice. You agree with me, 
Mr. Malbone ? ” 

“ Speak your mind,” said Blanche, coolly. 
“ Don’t say yes if you ’d rather not. Because 
we find a thing a bore, you ’ve no call to say 
so.” 

"I always say,” continued the matron, “that 
the presence of woman is needed as a refining 
influence.” 

Malbone looked round for the refining influ- 
ences. Blanche was tilted back in her chair, 
with one foot on the rung of the chair before 
her, resuming a loud-toned discourse with 
Count Posen as to his projected work on 
American society. She was trying to extort 
a promise that she should appear in its pages, 
which, as we all remember, she did. One of 
her attendant nymphs sat leaning her elbows 
on the table, “ talking horse ” with a gentleman 
who had an undoubted professional claim to a 
knowledge of that commodity. Another, hav- 
ing finished her manufactured cigarette, was 
making the grinning midshipman open his 
lips wider and wider to receive it. Mrs. In- 
gleside was talking in her mincing way with a 
6* 1 


130 


Malbone. 


Jew broker, whose English was as imperfect 
as his morals, and who needed nothing to 
make him a millionnaire but a turn of bad 
luck for somebody else. Half the men in the 
room would have felt quite ill at ease in any 
circle of refined women, but there was not one 
who did not feel perfectly unembarrassed 
around Mrs. Ingleside’s board. 

“ Upon my word,” thought Malbone, " I 
never fancied the English after-dinner prac- 
tice, any more than did Napoleon. But if 
this goes on, it is the gentlemen who ought to 
withdraw. Cannot somebody lead the way to 
the drawing-room, and leave the ladies to fin- 
ish their .cigars ? ” 

Till now he had hardly dared to look at 
Emilia. He saw with a thrill of love that she 
was the one person in the room who appeared 
out of place or ill at ease. She did not glance 
at him, but held her cigarette in silence and 
refused to light it. She had boasted to him 
once of having learned to smoke at school. 

“ What ’s the matter, Emmy ? ” suddenly 
exclaimed Blanche. “ Are you under a cloud, 
that you don’t blow one ? ” 

“ Blanche, Blanche,” said her mother, in 
sweet reproof. “ Mr. Malbone, what shall I 


Malbone. 


I3i 

do with this wild girl ? Such a light way of 
talking ! But I can assure you that she is 
really very fond of the society of intellectual, 
superior men. I often tell her that they are, 
after all, her most congenial associates. More 
so than the young and giddy.” 

“ You’d better believe it,” said the una- 
bashed damsel. “Take notice that whenever 
I go to a dinner-party I look round for a cler- 
gyman to drink wine with.” 

“ Incorrigible ! ” said the caressing mother. 
“ Mr. Malbone would hardly imagine you had 
been bred in a Christian land.” 

“ I have, though,” retorted Blanche. “ My 
esteemed parent always accustomed me to 
give up something during Lent, — champagne, 
or the New York Herald, or something.” 

The young men roared, and, had time and 
cosmetics made it possible, Mrs. Ingleside 
would have blushed becomingly. After all, 
the daughter was the better of the two. Her 
bluntness was refreshing beside the mother’s 
suavity; she had a certain generosity, too, 
and in a case of real destitution would have 
lent her best ear-rings to a friend. 

By this time Malbone had edged himself to 
Emilia’s side. “ Will you drive with me ? ” he 
murmured in an undertone. 


132 


Malbone. 


She nodded slightly, abruptly, and he with- 
drew again. 

“ It seems barbarous,” said he aloud, “ to 
break up the party. But I must claim my 
promised drive with Miss Emilia.” 

Blanche looked up, for once amazed, having 
heard a different programme arranged. Count 
Posen looked up also. But he thought he 
must have misunderstood Emilia’s acceptance 
of his previous offer to drive her ; and as he 
prided himself even more on his English than 
On his gallantry, he said no more. It was no 
great matter. Young Jones’s dog-cart was at 
the door, and always opened eagerly its arms 
to anybody with a title. 


Malbone . 


133 


XII. 


A NEW ENGAGEMENT. 

EN days later Philip came into Aunt 



Jane’s parlor, looking excited and gloomy, 
with a letter in his hand. He put it down on 
her table without its envelope, — a thing that 
always particularly annoyed her. A letter 
without its envelope, she was wont to say, 
was like a man without a face, or a key with-, 
out a string, — something incomplete, prepos- 
terous. As usual, however, he strode across 
her prejudices, and said, “ I have something to 
tell you. It is a fact.” 

“Is it ?” said Aunt Jane, curtly. “That is 
refreshing in these times.” 

“ A good beginning,” said Kate. “ Go on. 
You have prepared us for something incredi- 


ble.” 


“You will think it so,” said Malbone. 
“Emilia is engaged to Mr. John Lambert.” 
And he went out of the room. 

“ Good Heavens ! ” said Aunt Jane, taking 
off her spectacles. “ What a man ! He is 


134 


Malbone. 


ugly enough to frighten the neighboring 
crows. His face looks as if it had fallen 
together out of chaos, and the features had 
come where it had pleased Fate. { There is a 
look of industrious nothingness about him, 
such as busy dogs have.; I know the whole 
family. They used to bake our bread.” 

“ I suppose they are good and sensible,” 
said Kate. 

“ Like boiled potatoes, my dear,” was the 
response, — “ wholesome but perfectly unin- 
teresting.” 

“ Is he of that sort? ” asked Kate. 

“ No,” said her aunt ; “ not uninteresting, 
but ungracious. But I like an ungracious man 
better than one like Philip, who hangs over 
young girls like a soft-hearted avalanche. This 
Lambert will govern Emilia, which is what 
she needs.” 

“ She will never love him,” said Kate, 
“which is the one thing she needs. There 
is nothing that could not be done with Emilia 
by any person with whom she was in love ; 
and nothing can ever be done with her by 
anybody else. No good will ever come of 
this, and I hope she will never marry him.” 

With this unusual burst, Kate retreated to 


Malbone. 


135 

Hope. Hope took the news more patiently 
than any one, but with deep solicitude. A 
worldly marriage seemed the natural result 
of the Ingleside influence, but it had not oc- 
curred to anybody that it would come so soon. 
It had not seemed Emilia’s peculiar tempta- 
tion ; and yet nobody could suppose that she 
looked at John Lambert through any glamour 
of the affections. 

Mr. John Lambert was a millionnaire, a 
politician, and a widower. The late Mrs. 
Lambert had been a specimen of that cheerful 
hopelessness of temperament that one finds 
abundantly developed among the middle-aged 
women of country towns. She enjoyed her 
daily murders in the newspapers, and wept 
profusely at the funerals of strangers. On 
every occasion, however felicitous, she offered 
her condolences in a feeble voice, that seemed 
to have been washed a great many times and 
to have faded. But she was a good manager, 
a devoted wife, and was more cheerful at home 
than elsewhere, for she had there plenty of 
trials to exercise her eloquence, and not enough 
joy to make it her duty to be doleful. At last 
her poor, meek, fatiguing voice faded out alto- 
gether, and her husband mourned her as 


136 Malbone . 

heartily as she would have bemoaned the 
demise of the most insignificant neighbor. 
After her death, being left childless, he had 
nothing to do but to make money, and he 
naturally made it. Having taken his primary 
financial education in New England, he grad- 
uated at that great business university, Chi- 
cago, and then entered on the public practice 
of wealth in New York. 

Aunt Jane had perhaps done injustice to 
the personal appearance of Mr. John Lam- 
bert. His features were irregular, but not in- 
significant, and there was a certain air of slow 
command about him, which made some per- 
sons call him handsome. He was heavily 
built, with a large, well-shaped head, light 
whiskers tinged with gray, and a sort of dusty 
complexion. His face was full of little curved 
wrinkles, as if it were a slate just ruled for 
sums in long division, and his small blue eyes 
winked anxiously a dozen different ways, as 
if they were doing the sums. He seemed to 
bristle with memorandum-books, and kept 
drawing them from every pocket, to put 
something down. He was slow of speech, 
and his very heaviness of look added to the 
impression of reserved power about the man. 


Malbone . 


137 


All his career in life had been a solid progress, 
and his boldest speculations seemed securer 
than the legitimate business of less potent 
financiers. Beginning business life by ped- 
dling gingerbread on a railway train, he had 
developed such a genius for railway manage- 
ment as some men show for chess or for vir- 
tue ; and his accumulating property had the 
momentum of a planet. 

He had read a good deal at odd times, and 
had seen a great deal of men. His private 
morals were unstained, he was equable and 
amiable, had strong good sense, and never got 
beyond his depth. He had travelled in Eu- 
rope and brought home many statistics, some 
new thoughts, and a few good pictures select- 
ed by his friends. He spent his money liber- 
ally for the things needful to his position, 
owned a yacht, bred trotting-horses, and had 
founded a theological school. 

He submitted to these and other social ob- 
servances from a vague sense of duty as an 
American citizen; his real interest lay in 
business and in politics. Yet he conducted 
these two vocations on principles diametrical- 
ly opposite. In business he was more honest 
than the average ; in politics he had no con- 


138 


Malbone. 


ception of honesty, for he could see no differ- 
ence between a politician and any other mer- 
chandise. He always succeeded in business, 
for he thoroughly understood its principles ; 
in politics he always failed in the end, for he 
recognized no principles at all. In business 
he was active, resolute, and seldom deceived ; 
in politics he was equally active, but was apt 
to be irresolute, and was deceived every day 
of his life. In both cases it was not so much 
from love of power that he labored, as from 
the excitement of the game. The -larger the 
scale the better he liked it ; a large railroad 
operation, a large tract of real estate, a big 
and noisy statesman, — these investments he 
found irresistible. 

On which of his two sets of principles he 
would manage a wife remained to be proved. 
It is the misfortune of what are called self- 
made men in America, that, though early ac- 
customed to the society of men of the world, 
they often remain utterly unacquainted with 
women of the world, until those charming 
perils are at last sprung upon them in full 
force, at New York or Washington. John 
Lambert at forty was as absolutely ignorant 
of the qualities and habits of a cultivated 


Malbone . 


139 

woman as of the details of her toilet. The 
plain domesticity of his departed wife he had 
understood and prized ; he remembered her 
household ways as he did her black alpaca 
dress ; indeed, except for that item of apparel, 
she was not so unlike himself. In later years 
he had seen the women of society ; he had 
heard them talk ; he had heard men talk about 
them, wittily or wickedly, at the clubs ; he 
had perceived that a good many of them 
wished to marry him, and yet, after all, he 
knew no more of them than of the rearing of 
humming-birds or orchids, — dainty, tropical 
things which he allowed his gardener to raise, 
he keeping his hands off, and only paying the 
bills. Whether there was in existence a class 
of women who were both useful and refined, 
— any intermediate type between the butter- 
fly and the drudge, — was a question which 
he had sometimes asked himself, without hav- 
ing the materials to construct a reply. 

With imagination thus touched and heart 
unfilled, this man had been bewitched from 
the very first moment by Emilia. He kept it 
to himself, and heard in silence the criticisms 
made at the club- windows. To those perpet- 
ual jokes about marriage, which are showered 


140 M alb one. 

with such graceful courtesy about the path 
of widowers, he had no reply ; or at most 
would only admit that he needed some ele- 
gant woman to preside over his establishment, 
and that he had better take her young, as hav- 
ing habits less fixed. But in his secret soul 
he treasured every tone of this girl’s voice, 
every glance of her eye, and would have kept 
in a casket of gold and diamonds the little 
fragrant glove she once let fall. He envied 
the penniless and brainless boys, who, with 
ready gallantry, pushed by him to escort her 
to her carriage ; and' he lay awake at night to 
form into words the answer he ought to have 
made, when she threw at him some careless 
phrase, and gave him the opportunity to blun- 
der. 

And she, meanwhile, unconscious of his pas- 
sion, went by him in her beauty, and caught 
him in the net she never threw. Emilia 
was always piquant, because she was indif- 
ferent ; she had never made an effort in her 
life, and she had no respect for persons. She 
was capable of marrying for money, perhaps, 
but the sacrifice must all be completed in a 
single vow. She would not tutor nor control 
herself for the purpose. Hand and heart 


Malbone. 


141 

must be duly transferred, she supposed, when- 
ever the time was up ; but till then she must 
be free. 

This with her was not art, but necessity ; 
yet the most accomplished art could have 
devised nothing so effectual to hold her lover. 
His strong sense had always protected him 
from the tricks of matchmaking mammas and 
their guileless maids. Had Emilia made one 
effort to please him, once concealed a dislike, 
once affected a preference, the spell might 
have been broken. Had she been his slave, 
he might have become a very unyielding 
or a very heedless despot. Making him her 
slave, she kept him at the very height of bliss. 
This king of railways and purchaser of states- 
men, this man who made or wrecked the for- 
tunes of others by his whim, was absolutely 
governed by a reckless, passionate, inexperi- 
enced, ignorant girl. 

And this passion was made all the stronger 
by being a good deal confined to his own 
breast. Somehow it was very hard for him to 
talk sentiment to Emilia; he instinctively 
saw she disliked it, and indeed he liked her 
for not approving the stiff phrases which were 
all he could command. Nor could he find 


142 


Malbone. 


any relief of mind in talking with others 
about her. It enraged him to be clapped on 
the back and congratulated by his compeers ; 
and he stopped their coarse jokes, often rudely 
enough. As for the young men at the club, 
he could not bear to hear them mention his 
darling’s name, however courteously. He 
knew well enough that for them the be- 
trothal had neither dignity nor purity ; that 
they held it to be as much a matter of bar- 
gain and sale as their worst amours. He 
would far rather have talked to the theologi- 
cal professors whose salaries he paid, for he 
saw that they had a sort of grave, formal tra- 
dition of the sacredness of marriage. And he 
had a right to claim that to him it was sacred, 
at least as yet ; all the ideal side of his nature 
was suddenly developed ; he walked in a 
dream ; he even read Tennyson. 

Sometimes he talked a little to his future 
brother-in-law, Harry, — assuming, as lovers 
are wont, that brothers see sisters on their 
ideal side. This was quite true of Harry and 
Hope, but not at all true as regarded Emilia. 
She seemed to him simply a beautiful and un- 
governed girl whom he could not respect, and 
whom he therefore found it very hard to ideal- 


Malbone . 


143 


ize. Therefore he heard with a sort of sadness 
the outpourings of generous devotion from 
John Lambert. 

“ I don’t know how it is, Henry,” the mer- 
chant would gravely say, “ I can’t get rightly 
used to it, that I feel so strange. Honestly, 
now, I feel as if I was beginning life over 
again. It ain’t a selfish feeling, so I know 
there ’s some good in it I used to be selfish 
enough, but I ain’t so to her. You may not 
think it, but if it would make her happy, I be- 
lieve I could lie down and let her carriage roll 

over me. By , I would build her a palace 

to live in, and keep the lodge at the gate myself, 
just to see her pass by. That is, if she was 
to live in it alone by herself. I could n’t stand 
sharing her. It must be me or nobody.” 

Probably there was no male acquaintance 
of the parties, however hardened, to whom 
these fine flights would have seemed more 
utterly preposterous than to the immediate 
friend and prospective bridesmaid, Miss 
Blanche Ingleside. To that young lady, 
trained sedulously by a devoted mother, life 
was really a serious thing. It meant the full 
rigor of the marriage market, tempered only 
by dancing and new dresses. There was a 


144 


Malbone . 


stern sense of duty beneath all her robing and 
disrobing ; she conscientiously did what was 
expected of her, and took her little amuse- 
ments meanwhile. It was supposed that most 
of the purchasers in the market preferred slang 
and bare shoulders, and so she favored them 
with plenty of both. It was merely the law 
of supply and demand. Had John Lambert 
once hinted that he would accept her in de- 
cent black, she would have gone to the next 
ball as a Sister of Charity ; but where was 
the need of it, when she and her mother both 
knew that, had she appeared as the Veiled 
Prophet of Khorassan, she would not have 
won him ? So her only resource was a cheer- 
ful acquiescence in Emilia’s luck, and a judi- 
cious propitiation of the accepted favorite. 

“ I would n’t mind playing Virtue Rewarded 
myself, young, woman,” said Blanche, “ at such 
a scale of prices. I would do it even to so 
slow an audience as old Lambert. But you 
see, it is n’t my line. Don’t forget your hum- 
ble friends when you come into your property, 
that ’s all.” Then the tender coterie of inno- 
cents entered on some preliminary considera- 
tion of wedding-dresses. 

When Emilia came home, she dismissed the 


Malbone. 


145 


whole matter lightly as a settled thing, evad- 
ed all talk with Aunt Jane, and coolly said 
to Kate that she had no objection to Mr. Lam- 
bert, and might as well marry him as anybody 
else. 

“ I am not like you and Hal, you know,” 
said she. “ I have no fancy for love in a cot- 
tage. I never look well in anything that is 
not costly. I have not a taste that does not 
imply a fortune. What is the use of love ? 
One marries for love, and is unhappy ev6r 
after. One marries for money, and perhaps 
gets love after all. I dare say Mr. Lambert 
loves me, though I do not see why he should.” 

“ I fear he does,” said Kate, almost severely. 

“ Fear ? ” said Emilia. 

“Yes,” said Kate. “It is an unequal bar- 
gain, where one side does all the loving.” 

“ Don’t be troubled,” said Emilia. “ I dare 
say he will not love me long. Nobody ever 
did ! ” And her eyes filled with tears which 
she dashed away- angrily, as she ran up to her 
room. 

It was harder yet for her to talk with Hope, 
but she did it, and that in a very serious mood. 
She had never been so open with her sister. 

“Aunt Jane once told me,” she said, “that 
7 J 


146 


Malbone. 


my only safety was in marrying a good man. 
Now I am engaged to one.” 

“ Do you love him, Emilia ? ” asked Hope, 
gravely. 

“Not much,” said Emilia, honestly. “But 
perhaps I shall, by and by.” 

“ Emilia,” cried Hope, “ there is no such 
thing as happiness in a marriage without 
love.” 

“Mine is not without love,” the girl an- 
swered. “ He loves me. It frightens me to 
see how much he loves me. I can have the 
devotion of a lifetime, if I will. Perhaps it is 
hard to receive it in such a way, but I can 
have it. Do you blame me very much ? ” 

Hope hesitated. “ I cannot blame you so 
much, my child,” she said, “ as if I thought 
it were money for which you cared. It seems 
to me that there must be something beside 
that, and yet — ” 

“O Hope, how I thank you,” interrupted 
Emilia. “ It is not money. You know I do 
not care about money, except just to buy my 
clothes and things. At least, I do not care 
about so much as he has, — more than a mil- 
lion dollars, only think ! Perhaps they said 
two million. Is it wrong for me to marry him, 
just because he has that ? ” 


Malbone. 


l 47 


“ Not if you love him.” 

“ I do not exactly love him, but O Hope, I 
cannot tell you about it. I am not so frivo- 
lous as you think. I want to do my duty. I 
want to make you happy too : you have been 
so sweet to me.” 

“ Did you think it would make me happy to 
have you married ? ” asked Hope, surprised, 
and kissing again and again the young, sad 
face. And the two girls went upstairs to- 
gether, brought for the moment into more 
sisterly nearness by the very thing that had 
seemed likely to set them forever apart. 


148 


M alb one. 


XIII. 

DREAMING DREAMS. 

S O short was the period between Emilia’s 
betrothal and her marriage, that Aunt 
Jane’s sufferings over trousseau and visits did 
not last long. Mr. Lambert’s society was the 
worst thing to bear. 

" He makes such long calls ! ” she said, de- 
spairingly. “ He should bring an almanac 
with him to know when the days go by.” 

“But Harry and Philip are here all the 
time,” said Kate, the accustomed soother. 

“ Harry is quiet, and Philip keeps out of the 
way lately,” she answered. “ But I always 
thought lovers the most inconvenient thing 
about a house. They are more troublesome 
than the mice, and all those people who live 
in the wainscot ; for though the lovers make 
less noise, yet you have to see them.” 

“A necessary evil, dear,” said Kate, with 
much philosophy. 

“I am not sure,” said the complainant. 
“ They might be excluded in the deed of a 


Malbone. 


149 


house, or by the terms of the lease. The 
next house I take, I shall say to the owner, 
‘ Have you a good well of water on the prem- 
ises ? Are you troubled with rats or lovers ? ’ 
That will settle it.” 

It was true, what Aunt Jane said about 
Malbone. He had changed his habits a good 
deal. While the girls were desperately busy 
about the dresses, he beguiled Harry to the 
club, and sat on the piazza, talking sentiment 
and sarcasm, regardless of hearers. 

“ When we are young,” he would say, “ we 
are all idealists in love. Every imaginative 
boy has such a passion, while his intellect is 
crude and his senses indifferent. It is the 
height of bliss. All other pleasures are not 
worth its pains. With older men this ecstasy 
of the imagination is rare ; it is the senses 
that clutch or reason which holds.” 

" Is that an improvement ? ” asked some 
juvenile listener. 

“ No ! ” said Philip, strongly. “ Reason is 
cold and sensuality hateful ; a man of any 
feeling must feed his imagination ; there must 
be a woman of whom he can dream.” 

“ That is,” put in some more critical auditor, 
“ whom he can love as a woman loves a man.” 


Malbone. 


150 

“ For want of the experience of such a pas- 
sion,” Malbone went on, unheeding, “ nobody 
comprehends Petrarch. Philosophers and sen- 
sualists all refuse to believe that his dream of 
Laura went on, even when he had a mistress 
and a child. Why not ? Every one must 
have something to which his dreams can cling, 
amid the degradation's of actual life, and this 
tie is more real than the degradation ; and if 
he holds to the tie, it will one day save him.” 

“ What is the need of the degradation ? ” 
put in the clear-headed Harry. 

“ None, except in weakness,” said Philip. 
“ A stronger nature may escape it. Good 
God ! do I not know how Petrarch must 
have felt ? What sorrow life brings ! Sup- 
pose a man hopelessly separated from one 
whom he passionately loves. Then, as he 
looks up at the starry sky, something says to 
him : ‘ You can bear all these agonies of pri- 
vation, loss of life, loss of love, — what are 
they ? If the tie between you is what you 
thought, neither life nor death, neither folly 
nor sin, can keep her forever from you.’ 
Would that one could always feel so ! But 
I am weak. Then comes impulse, it thirsts 
for some immediate gratification ; I yield, and 


Malbone. 


I5i 

plunge into any happiness since I cannot ob- 
tain her. Then comes quiet again, with the 
stars, and I bitterly reproach myself for need- 
ing anything more than that stainless ideal. 
And so, I fancy, did Petrarch.” 

Philip was getting into a dangerous mood 
with his sentimentalism. No lawful passion 
can ever be so bewildering or ecstatic as an 
unlawful one. For that which is right has 
all the powers of the universe on its side, and 
can afford to wait ; but the wrong, having all 
those vast forces against it, must hurry to its 
fulfilment, reserve nothing, concentrate all its 
ecstasies upon to-day. Malbone, greedy of 
emotion, was drinking to the dregs a passion 
that could have no to-morrow. 

Sympathetic persons are apt to assume that 
every refined emotion must be ennobling. This 
is not true of men like Malbone, voluptuaries 
of the heart. He ordinarily got up a passion 
very much as Lord Russell got up an appetite, 

— he, of Spence’s Anecdotes, who went out 
hunting for that sole purpose, and left the 
chase when the sensation came. Malbone 
did not leave his more spiritual chase so soon, 

— it made him too happy. Sometimes, in- 
deed, when he had thus caught his emotion, 


152 


Malbone. 


it caught him in return, and for a few mo- 
ments made him almost unhappy. This he 
liked best of all ; he nursed the delicious pain, 
knowing that it would die out soon enough, 
there was no need of hurrying it to a close. 
At least, there had never been need for such 
solicitude before. 

Except for his genius for keeping his own 
counsel, every acquaintance of Malbone’s 
would have divined the meaning of these 
reveries. As it was, he was called whimsical 
and sentimental, but he was a man of suf- 
ficiently assured position to have whims of 
his own, and could even treat himself to an 
emotion or so, if he saw fit. Besides, he 
talked well to anybody on anything, and was 
admitted to exhibit, for a man of literary 
tastes, a good deal of sense. If he had en- 
gaged himself to a handsome schoolmistress, 
it was his fancy, and he could afford it. More- 
over she was well connected, and had an air. 
And what more natural than that he should 
stand at the club-window and watch, when his 
young half-sister (that was to be) drove by 
with John Lambert ? So every afternoon he 
saw them pass in a vehicle of lofty descrip- 
tion, with two wretched appendages in dark 


Malbone . 


153 


blue broadcloth, who sat with their backs 
turned to their masters, kept their arms 
folded, and nearly rolled off at every corner. 
Hope would have dreaded the close neighbor- 
hood of those Irish ears ; she would rather 
have ridden even in an omnibus, could she 
and Philip have taken all the seats. But then 
Hope seldom cared to drive on the Avenue at 
all, except as a means of reaching the ocean, 
whereas with most people it appears the ap- 
pointed means to escape from that spectacle. 
And as for the footmen, there was nothing 
in the conversation worth their hearing or 
repeating ; and their presence was a relief 
to Emilia, for who knew but Mr. Lambert 
himself might end in growing sentimental ? 

Yet she did not find him always equally 
tedious. Their drives had some variety. For 
instance, he sometimes gave her some lovely 
present before they set forth, and she could 
feel that, if his lips did not yield diamonds and 
rubies, his pockets did. Sometimes he con- 
versed about money and investments, which 
she rather liked ; this was his strong and com- 
manding point ; he explained things quite 
clearly, and they found, with mutual surprise, 
that she also had a shrewd little brain for 
7 * 


154 


Malbone. 


those matters, if she would but take the 
trouble to think about them. Sometimes he 
insisted on being tender, and even this was 
not so bad as she expected,, at least for a 
few minutes at a time ; she rather enjoyed 
having her hand pressed so seriously, and 
his studied phrases amused her. It was 
only when he wished the conversation to be 
brilliant and intellectual, that he became in- 
tolerable ; then she must entertain him, must 
get up little repartees, must tell him lively an- 
ecdotes, which he swallowed as a dog bolts a 
morsel, being at once ready for the next. He 
never made a comment, of course, but at the 
height of his enjoyment he gave a quick, 
short, stupid laugh, that so jarred upon her 
ears, she would have liked to be struck deaf 
rather than hear it again. 

At these times she thought of Malbone, 
how gifted he was, how inexhaustible, how 
agreeable, with a faculty for happiness that 
would have been almost provoking had it not 
been contagious. Then she looked from her 
airy perch and smiled at him at the club-win- 
dow, where he stood in the most negligent of 
attitudes, and with every faculty strained in 
observation. A moment and she was gone. 


Malbone . 


155 


Then all was gone, and a mob of queens might 
have blocked the way, without his caring to 
discuss their genealogies, even with old Gen- 
eral Le Breton, who had spent his best (or 
his worst) years abroad, and was supposed 
to have been confidential adviser to most of 
the crowned heads of Europe. 

For the first time in his life Malbone found 
himself in the grasp of a passion too strong 
to be delightful. For the first time his own 
heart frightened him. He had sometimes 
feared that it was growing harder, but now 
he discovered that it was not hard enough. 

He knew it was not merely mercenary mo- 
tives that had made Emilia accept John Lam- 
bert ; but what troubled him was a vague 
knowledge that it was not mere pique. He 
was used to dealing with pique in women, and 
had found it the most manageable of weak- 
nesses. It was an element of spasmodic con- 
science that he saw here, and it troubled him. 

Something told him that she had said to 
herself : “ I will be married, and thus do my 
duty to Hope. Other girls marry persons 
whom they do not love, and it helps them to 
forget. Perhaps it will help me. This is a 
good man, they say, and I think he loves me.” 


156 


Malbone. 


“Think?” John Lambert had adored her 
when she had passed by him without looking 
at him ; and now when the thought came over 
him that she would be his wife, he became 
stupid with bliss. And as latterly he had v 
thought of little else, he remained more or 
less stupid all the time. 

To a man like Malbone, self-indulgent 
rather than selfish, this poor, blind semblance 
of a moral purpose in Emilia was a great em- 
barrassment. It is a terrible thing for a lover 
when he detects conscience amidst the armory 
of weapons used against him, and faces the 
fact that he must blunt a woman’s principles 
to win her heart. Philip was rather accus- 
tomed to evade conscience, but he never liked 
to look it in the face and defy it. 

Yet if the thought of Hope at this time 
came over him, it came as a constraint, and 
he disliked it as such ; and the more generous 
and beautiful she was, the greater the con- 
straint. He cursed himself that he had al- 
lowed himself to be swayed back to her, 
and so had lost Emilia forever. And thus 
he drifted on, not knowing what he wished 
for, but knowing extremely well what he 
feared. 


Malbone. 


1 57 


XIV. 

THE NEMESIS OF PASSION. 

r 

M ALBONE was a person of such ready, 
emotional nature, and such easy ex- 
pression, that it was not hard for Hope to 
hide from herself the gradual ebbing of his 
love. Whenever he was fresh and full of 
spirits, he had enough to overflow upon her 
and every one. But when other thoughts and 
cares were weighing on him, he could not 
share them, nor could he at such times, out 
of the narrowing channel of his own life, fur- 
nish more than a few scanty drops for her. 

At these times he .watched with torturing 
fluctuations the signs of solicitude in Hope, 
the tijnid withdrawing of her fingers, the 
questioning of her eyes, the weary drooping 
of her whole expression. Often he cursed 
himself as a wretch for paining that pure and 
noble heart. Yet there were moments when 
a vague inexpressible delight stole in ; a glim- 
mering of shame-faced pleasure as he pon- 
dered on this visible dawning of distrust; a 


153 


Malbone . 


sudden taste of freedom in being no longer 
fettered by her confidence. By degrees he 
led himself, still half ashamed, to the dream 
that she might yet be somehow weaned from 
him, and leave his conscience free. By con- 
stantly building upon this thought, and put- 
ting aside all others, he made room upon the 
waste of his life for a house of cards, glitter- 
ing, unsubstantial, lofty, — until there came 
some sudden breath that swept it away ; and 
then he began on it again. 

In one of those moments of more familiar 
faith which still alternated with these cold, 
sad intervals, she asked him with some sudden 
impulse, how he should feel if she loved 
another ? She said it, as if guided by an 
instinct, to sound the depth of his love for 
her. Starting with amazement, he looked at 
her, and then, divining her feeling, he only 
replied by an expression of reproach, and by 
kissing her hands with an habitual tenderness 
that had grown easy to him, — and they were 
such lovely hands ! But his heart told him 
that no spent swimmer ever transferred more 
eagerly to another’s arms some precious bur- 
den beneath which he was consciously sink- 
ing, than he would yield her up to any one. 


M alb one. 


159 


whom she would consent to love, and who 
could be trusted with the treasure. Until 
that ecstasy of release should come, he would 
do his duty, — yes, his duty. 

When these flushed hopes grew pale, as 
they soon did, he could at least play with the 
wan fancies that took their place. Hour 
after hour, while she lavished upon him the 
sweetness of her devotion, he was half con- 
sciously shaping with his tongue some word 
of terrible revealing that should divide them 
like a spell, if spoken, and then recalling it 
before it left his lips. Daily and hourly he 
felt the .last agony of a weak and passionate 
nature, — to dream of one woman in another’s 
arms. 

She, too, watched him with an ever-increas- 
ing instinct of danger, studied with a chilly 
terror the workings of his face, weighed and 
reweighed his words in absence, agonized her- 
self with new and ever new suspicions ; and 
then, when these had accumulated beyond 
endurance, seized them convulsively and threw 
them all away. Then, coming back to him 
with a great overwhelming ardor of affection, 
she poured upon him more and more in pro- 
portion as he gave her less. 


i6o Malbone. 

Sometimes in these moments of renewed 
affection he half gave words to his remorse, 
accused himself before her of unnamed wrong, 
and besought her to help him return to his 
better self. These were the most dangerous 
moments of all, for such appeals made tender- 
ness and patience appear a duty ; she must 
put away her doubts as sins, and hold him to 
her ; she must refuse to see his signs of falter- 
ing faith, or treat them as mere symptoms of 
ill health. Should not a wife cling the closer 
to her husband in proportion as he seemed 
alienated through the wanderings of disease ? 
And was not this her position? So she 
said within herself, and meanwhile it was 
not hard to penetrate her changing thoughts, 
at least for so keen an observer as Aunt 
Jane. Hope, at length, almost ceased to 
speak of Malbone, and revealed her grief by 
this evasion, as the robin reveals her nest by 
flitting from it. 

Yet there were times when he really tried 
to force himself into a revival of this calmer 
emotion. He studied Hope’s beauty with his 
eyes, he pondered on all her nobleness. He 
wished to bring his whole heart back to her, 
— or at least wished that he wished it. v But 


Mcilbone. 


161 

hearts that have educated themselves into 
faithlessness must sooner or later share the 
suffering they give^ Love will be avenged on 
them. Nothing could have now recalled this 
epicure in passion, except, possibly, a little 
withholding or semi-coquetry on Hope’s part, 
and this was utterly impossible for her. Ab- 
solute directness was a part of her nature ; 
she could die, but not manoeuvre. 

It actually diminished Hope’s hold on Philip, 
that she had at this time the whole field to 
herself. Emilia had gone for a few weeks to 
the mountains, with the household of which 
she was a guest. An ideal and unreasonable 
passion is strongest in absenee, when the 
dream is all pure dream, and safe from the 
discrepancies of daily life. When the two 
girls were together, Emilia often showed her- 
self so plainly Hope’s inferior, that it jarred 
on Philip’s fine perceptions. But in Emilia’s 
absence the spell of temperament, or what- 
ever else brought them together, resumed 
its sway unchecked ; she became one great 
magnet of attraction, and all the currents 
of the universe appeared to flow from the 
direction where her eyes were shining. When 
she was out of sight, he needed to make no 


K 


Malbone. 


1 62 

allowance for her defects, to reproach himself 
with no overt acts of disloyalty to Hope, to 
recognize no criticisms of his own intellect 
or conscience. He could resign himself to his 
reveries, and pursue them into new subtleties 
day by day. 

There was Mrs. Meredith’s house, too, 
where they had been so happy. And now 
the blinds were pitilessly closed, all but one 
where the Venetian slats had slipped, and 
stood half open as if some dainty fingers held 
them, and some lovely eyes looked through. 
He gazed so long and so often on that silent 
house, — by day, when the scorching sunshine 
searched its pores as if to purge away every 
haunting association, or by night, when the 
mantle of darkness hung tenderly above it, 
and seemed to collect the dear remembrances 
again, — that his fancy by degrees grew mor- 
bid, and its pictures unreal. “ It is impossi- 
ble,” he one day thought to himself, “ that 
she should have lived in that room so long, 
sat in that window, dreamed on that couch, 
reflected herself in that mirror, breathed that 
air, without somehow detaching invisible fibres 
of her being, delicate films of herself, that 
must gradually, she being gone, draw together 


Malbone. 


163 

into a separate individuality an image not 
quite bodiless, that replaces her in her absence, 
as the holy Theocrite was replaced by the 
angel. If there are ghosts of the dead, why 
not ghosts of the living also ? ” This lover’s 
fancy so pleased him that he brought to bear 
upon it the whole force of his imagination, 
and it grew stronger day by day. To him, 
thenceforth, the house was haunted, and all 
its floating traces of herself visible or invisible, 

— from the ribbon that he saw entangled in 
the window-blind to every intangible and fan- 
cied atom she had imparted to the atmosphere, 

— came at last to organize themselves into 
one phantom shape for him and looked out, a 
wraith of Emilia, through those relentless 
blinds. As the vision grew more vivid, he 
saw the dim figure moving through the house, 
wan, restless, tender, lingering where they had 
lingered, haunting every nook where they had 
been happy once. In the windy moanings 
of the silent night he could put his ear at the 
keyhole, and could fancy that he heard the 
wild signals of her love and despair. 


164 


Malbone. 


XV. 

ACROSS THE BAY. 

HE children, as has been said, were all 



-*L devoted to Malbone, and this was, in a 
certain degree, to his credit. But it is a mis- 
take to call children good judges of character, 
except in one direction, namely, their own. 
They understand it, up to the level of their 
own stature ; they know who loves them, but 
not who loves virtue. Many a sinner has a 
great affection for children, and no child will 
ever detect the sins of such a friend ; because, 
toward them, the sins do not exist. 

The children, therefore, all loved Philip, and 
yet they turned with delight, when out-door 
pleasures were in hand, to the strong and 
adroit Harry. Philip inclined to the daintier 
exercises, fencing, billiards, riding ; but Har- 
ry’s vigorous physique enjoyed hard work. 
He taught all the household to swim, for 
instance. Jenny, aged five, a sturdy, deep- 
chested little thing, seemed as amphibious as 
himself. She could already swim alone, but 


Malbone. 


165 


she liked to keep close to him, as all young 
animals do to their elders - in the water, not 
seeming to need actual support, but stronger 
for the contact. Her favorite position, how- 
ever, was on his back, where she triumphantly 
clung, grasping his bathing-dress with one 
hand, swinging herself to and fro, dipping her 
head beneath the water, singing and shouting, 
easily shifting her position when he wished to 
vary his, and floating by him like a little fish, 
when he was tired of supporting her. It was 
pretty to see the child in her one little crimson ^ 
garment, her face flushed with delight, her fair 
hair glistening from the water, and the waves 
rippling and dancing round her buoyant form. 
As Harry swam farther and farther out, his 
head was hidden from view by her small per- 
son, and she might have passed for a red sea- 
bird rocking on the gentle waves. It was one 
of the regular delights of the household to see 
them bathe. 

Kate came in to Aunt Jane’s room, one 
August morning, to say that they were going 
to the water-side. How differently people 
may enter a room ! Hope always came in as 
the summer breeze comes, quiet, strong, soft, 
fragrant, resistless. Emilia never seemed to 


Malbone. 


1 66 

come in at all ; you looked up, and she had 
somehow drifted where she stood, pleading, 
evasive, lovely. This was especially the case 
where one person was awaiting her alone ; 
with two she was more fearless, with a dozen 
she was buoyant, and with a hundred she for- 
got herself utterly and was a spirit of irresist- 
ible delight. 

But Kate entered any room, whether nur- 
sery or kitchen, as if it were the private boudoir 
of a princess and she the favorite maid of 
honor. Thus it was she came that morning 
to Aunt Jane. 

“We are going down to see the bathers, 
dear,” said Kate. “ Shall you miss me ? ” 

“ I miss you every minute,” said her aunt, 
decisively. “ But I shall do very well. I have 
delightful times here by myself. What a ridic- 
ulous man it was who said that it was impossi- 
ble to imagine a woman’s laughing at her own 
comic fancies. I sit and laugh at my own 
nonsense very often,” 

“ It is a shame to waste it,” said Kate. 

“ It is a blessing that any of it is disposed 
of while you are not here,” said Aunt Jane. 
“ You have quite enough of it.” 

“We never have enough,” said Kate. “And 


M alb one. 167 

we never can make you repeat any of yester- 
day’s.” 

“Of course not,” said Aunt Jane. “Non- 
sense must have the dew on it, or it is good 
for nothing.” 

“ So you are really happiest alone ? ” 

“ Not so happy as when you are with me, — 
you or Hope. I like to have Hope with me 
now ; she does me good. Really, I do not 
care for anybody else. Sometimes I think if 
I could always have four or five young kittens 
by me, in a champagne-basket, with a nurse to 
watch them, I should be happier. But perhaps 
not ; they would grow up so fast ! ” 

“ Then I will leave you alone without com- 
punction,” said Kate. 

“ I am not alone,” said Aunt Jane ; “ I have 
my man in the boat to watch through the 
window. What a singular being he is ! I 
think he spends hours in that boat, and what 
he does I can’t conceive. There it is, quietly 
anchored, and there is he in it. I never saw 
anybody but myself who could get up so much 
industry out of nothing. He has all his house- 
work there, a broom and a duster, and I dare 
say he has a cooking-stove and a gridiron. 
He sits a little while, then he stoops down, 


Malboiie. 


1 68 

then he goes to the other end. Sometimes he 
goes ashore in that absurd little tub, with a 
stick that he twirls at one end.” 

“ That is called sculling,” interrupted Kate. 

“ Sculling ! I suppose he runs for a baked 
potato. Then he goes back. He is Robinson 
Crusoe on an island that never keeps still a 
single instant. It is all he has, and he never 
looks away, and never wants anything more. 
So I have him to watch. Think of living so 
near a beaver or a water-rat with clothes on ! 
Good-by. Leave the door ajar, it is so warm.” 

And Kate went down to the landing. It 
was near the “baptismal shore,” where every 
Sunday the young people used to watch the 
immersions ; they liked to see the crowd of 
spectators, the eager friends, the dripping con- 
vert, the serene young minister, the old men 
and girls who burst forth in song as the 
new disciple rose from the waves. It was the 
weekly festival in that region, and the sun- 
shine and the ripples made it gladdening, not 
gloomy. Every other day in the week the 
children of the fishermen waded waist-deep in 
the water, and played at baptism. 

Near this shore stood the family bathing- 
house ; and the girls came down to sit in its 


Malbone . 


169 


shadow and watch the swimming. It was late 
in August, and on the first of September 
Emilia was to be married. 

Nothing looked cool, that day, but the bay 
and those who were going into it. Out came 
Hope from the bathing-house, in a new bath- 
ing-dress of dark blue, which was evidently 
what the others had come forth to behold. 

“ Hope, what an imposter you are ! ” cried 
Kate, instantly. “ You declined all my prof- 
fers of aid in cutting that dress, and now see 
how it fits you ! You never looked so beauti- 
fully in your life. There is not such another 
bathing-dress in Oldport, nor such a figure to 
wear it.” 

And she put both her arms round that sup- 
ple, stately waist, that might have belonged to 
a Greek goddess, or to some queen in the 
Nibelungen Lied. 

The party watched the swimmers as they 
struck out over the clear expanse. It was 
high noon ; the fishing-boats were all off, but 
a few pleasure-boats swung different ways at 
their moorings, in the perfect calm. The 
white light-house stood reflected opposite, at 
the end of its long pier ; a few vessels lay at 
anchor, with their sails up to dry, but with 
8 


1 70 Malbone. 

that deserted look which coasters in port are 
wont to wear. A few fishes dimpled the still 
surface, and as the three swam out farther and 
farther, their merry voices still sounded close 
at hand. Suddenly they all clapped their 
hands and called ; then pointed forward to 
the light-house, across the narrow harbor. 

“ They are going to swim across,” said Kate. 
“ What creatures they are ! Hope and little 
Jenny have always begged for it, and now 
Harry thinks it is so still a day they can safely 
venture. It is more than half a mile. See ! 
he has called that boy in a boat, and he will 
keep near them. They have swum farther 
than that along the shore.” 

So the others went away with no fears. 

Hope said afterwards that she never swam 
with such delight as on that day. The water 
seemed to be peculiarly thin and clear, she 
said, as well as tranquil, and to retain its usu- 
al buoyancy without its density. It gave a 
delicious sense of freedom ; she seemed to 
swim in air, and felt singularly secure. For 
the first time she felt what she had always 
wished to experience, — that swimming was 
as natural as walking, and might be indefinite- 
ly prolonged. Her strength seemed limitless, 


Malbone. 


W 

she struck out more and more strongly ; she 
splashed and played with little Jenny, when 
the child began to grow weary of the long 
motion. A fishermans boy in a boat rowed 
slowly along by their side. 

Nine tenths of the distance had been ac- 
complished, when the little girl grew quite 
impatient, and Hope bade Harry swim on 
before her, and land his charge. Light and 
buoyant as the child was, her tightened clasp 
had begun to tell on him. 

“It tires, you, Hal, to bear that weight so 
long, and you know I have nothing to carry. 
You must see that I am not in the least tired, 
only a little dazzled by the sun. Here, Char- 
ley, give me your hat, and then row on with 
Mr. Harry.” She put on the boy’s torn straw 
hat, and they yielded to her wish. People 
almost always yielded to Hope’s wishes when 
she expressed them, — it was so very seldom. 

Somehow the remaining distance seemed 
very great, as Hope saw them glide away, 
leaving her in the water alone, her feet unsup- 
ported by any firm element, the bright and 
pitiless sky arching far above her, and her 
head burning with more heat than she had 
liked to own. She was conscious of her full 


172 


Malborie. 


strength, and swam more vigorously than 
ever ; but her head was hot and her ears 
rang, and she felt chilly vibrations passing up 
and down her sides, that were* like, she fan- 
cied, the innumerable fringing oars of the little 
jelly-fishes she had so often watched. Her 
body felt almost unnaturally strong, and she 
took powerful strokes ; but it seemed as if her 
heart went out into them and left a vacant 
cavity within. More and more her life seemed 
boiling up into her head ; queer fancies came 
to her, as, for instance, that she was an invert- 
ed thermometer with the mercury all ascend- 
ing into a bulb at the top. She shook her 
head and the fancy cleared away, and then 
others came. 

She began to grow seriously anxious, but 
the distance was diminishing ; Harry was 
almost at the steps with the child, and the 
boy had rowed his skiff round the breakwater 
out of sight ; a young fisherman leaned over 
the railing with his back to her, watching the 
lobster-catchers on the other side. She was 
almost in ; it was only a slight dizziness, yet 
she could not see the light-house. Concen- 
trating all her efforts, she shut her eyes and 
swam on, her arms still unaccountably vigor- 


M alb one. 


*73 


ous, though the rest of her body seemed losing 
itself in languor. The sound in her ear had 
grown to a roar, as of many mill-wheels. It 
seemed a long distance that she thus swam 
with her eyes closed. Then she half opened 
her eyes, and the breakwater seemed all in 
motion, with tier above tier of eager faces 
looking down on her. In an instant there 
was a sharp splash close beside her, and she 
felt herself grasped and drawn downwards, 
with a whirl of something just above her, and 
then all consciousness went out as suddenly as 
when ether brings at last to a patient, after 
the roaring and the tumult in his brain, its 
blessed foretaste of the deliciousness of death. 

When Hope came again to consciousness, 
she found herself approaching her own pier 
in a sail-boat, with several very wet gentle- 
men around her, and little Jenny nestled close 
to her, crying as profusely as if her pretty 
scarlet bathing-dress were being wrung out 
through her eyes. Hope asked no questions, 
and hardly felt' the impulse to inquire what 
had happened. The truth was, that in the 
temporary dizziness produced by her pro- 
longed swim, she had ‘found herself in the 
track of a steamboat that was passing the 


174 


M alb one. 


pier, unobserved by her brother. A young 
man, leaping from the deck, had caught her 
in his arms, and had dived with her below the 
paddle-wheels, just as they came upon her. 
It was a daring act, but nothing else could 
have saved her. When they came to the sur- 
face, they had been picked up by Aunt Jane’s 
Robinson Crusoe, who had at last unmoored 
his pilot-boat and was rounding the light-hous6 
for the outer harbor. 

She and the child were soon landed, and 
given over to the ladies. Due attention was 
paid to her young rescuer, whose dripping 
garments seemed for the moment as glorious 
as a blood-stained flag. He seemed a simple, 
frank young fellow of French or German ori- 
gin, but speaking English remarkably well ; he 
was not high-bred, by any means, but had ap- 
parently the culture of an average German of 
the middle class. Harry fancied that he had 
seen him before, and at last traced back the 
impression of his features to the ball for the 
French officers. It turned out, on inquiry, 
that he had a brother in the service, and on 
board the corvette ; but he himself was a 
commercial agent, now in America with a 
view to business, though he had made several 


Malbone. 


175 


voyages as Ynate of a vessel, and would not 
object to some such berth as that. He 
promised to return and receive the thanks of 
the family, read with interest the name on 
Harry’s card, seemed about to ask a question, 
but forbore, and took his leave amid the gen- 
eral confusion, without even giving his address. 
When sought next day, he was not to be 
found, and to the children he at once became 
as much a creature of romance as the sea- 
serpent or the Flying Dutchman. 

Even Hope’s strong constitution felt the 
shock of this adventure. She was confined 
to her room for a week or two, but begged 
that there might be no postponement of the 
wedding, which, therefore, took place without 
her. Her illness gave excuse for a privacy 
that was welcome to all but the bridesmaids, 
and suited Malbone best of all. 


176 


Malbone. 


XVI. 

ON THE STAIRS. 

A UGUST drew toward its close, and guests 
departed from the neighborhood. 

“ What a short little thing summer is,” medi- 
tated Aunt Jane, “and butterflies are cater- 
pillars most of the time after all. How quiet 
it seems. The wrens whisper in their box 
above the window, and there has not been a 
blast from the peacock for a week. He seems 
ashamed of the summer shortness of his tail. 
He keeps glancing at it over his shoulder to 
see if it is not looking better than yesterday, 
while the staring eyes of the old tail are in the 
bushes all about.” 

“ Poor, dear little thing ! ” said coaxing 
Katie. “ Is she tired of autumn, before it is 
begun ? ” 

“ I am never tired of anything,” said Aunt 
Jane, “except my maid Ruth, and I should 
not be tired of her, if it had pleased Heaven 
to endow her with sufficient strength of mind 
to sew on a button. Life is very rich to me. 


Malbone . 


1 77 


There is always something new in every sea- 
son ; though to be sure I cannot think what 
novelty there is just now, except a choice va- 
riety of spiders. There is a theory that spi- 
ders kill flies. But I never miss a fly, and 
there does not seem to be any natural scourge 
divinely appointed to kill spiders, except Ruth. 
Even she does it so feebly, that I see them 
come back and hang on their webs and make 
faces at her. I suppose they are faces ; I do 
not understand their anatomy, but it must be 
a very unpleasant one.” 

“ You are not quite satisfied with life, to- 
day, dear,” said Kate ; “ I fear your book did 
not end to your satisfaction.” 

“ It did end, though,” kaid the lady, “ and 
that is something. What is there in life 
so difficult as to stop a book?” If I wrote 
one, it would be as long as ten ‘ Sir Charles 
Grandisons,’ and then I never should end it, 
because I should die. And there would be 
nobody left to read it, because each reader 
would have been dead long before.” 

“But the book amused you!” interrupted 
Kate. “ I know it did.” 

“ It was so absurd that I laughed till I 
cried ; and it makes no difference whether 
8* l 


i 7 8 


Malbone. 


you cry laughing or cry crying ; it is equally 
bad when your glasses come off. Never mind. 
Whom did you see on the Avenue ? ” 

“ O, we saw Philip on horseback. He rides 
so beautifully ; he seems one with his horse.” 

“ I am glad of it,” interposed her aunt. 
“ The riders are generally so inferior to 
them.” 

“ We saw Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, too. 
Emilia stopped and asked after you, and sent 
you her love, auntie.” 

“Love!” cried Aunt Jane. “She always 
does that. She has sent me love enough to 
rear a whole family on, — more than I ever 
felt for anybody in all my days. But she does 
not really love any one.” 

“I hope she will love her husband,” said 
Kate, rather seriously. 

“Mark my words, Kate!” said her aunt. 
“Nothing but unhappiness will ever come of 
that marriage. How can two people be happy 
who have absolutely nothing in common ? ” 

“ But no two people have just the same 
tastes,” said Kate, “except Harry and myself. 
It is not expected. It would be absurd for 
two people to be divorced, because the one 
preferred white bread and the other brown.” 


Malbone. 


179 


“They would be divorced very soon,” said 
Aunt Jane, “ for the one who ate brown bread 
would not live long.” 

“ But it is possible that he might live, auntie, 
in spite of your prediction. And perhaps 
people may be happy, even if you and I do 
not see how.” 

“ Nobody ever thinks I see anything,” said 
Aunt Jane, in some dejection. “You think 
I am nothing in the world but a sort of old 
oyster, making amusement for people, and 
having no more to do with real life than oys- 
ters have.” 

“No, dearest!” cried Kate. “You have a 
great deal to do with all our lives. You are a 
dear old insidious sapper-and-miner, looking 
at first very inoffensive, and then working 
your way into our affections, and spoiling us 
with coaxing. How you behave about chil- 
dren, for instance !” 

“How ?” said the other meekly. “As well 
as I can.” 

“ But you pretend that you dislike them.” 

“ But I do dislike them. How can anybody 
help it ? Hear them swearing at this mo- 
ment, boys of five, paddling in the water 
there ! Talk about the murder of the inno- 


1 So Malbone. 

cents ! There are so few innocents to be 
murdered! If I only had a gun and could 
shoot ! ” 

“You may not like those particular boys,” 
said Kate, “ but you like good, well-behaved 
children, very much.” 

“ It takes so many to take care of them ! 
People drive by here, with carriages so large 
that two of the largest horses can hardly 
draw them, and all full of those little beings. 
They have a sort of roof, too, and seem to 
expect to be out in all weathers.” 

“ If you had a family of children, perhaps 
you would find such a travelling caravan very 
convenient,” said Kate. 

“ If I had such a family, said her aunt, “ I 
would have a separate governess and guar- 
dian for each, very moral persons. They 
should come when each child was two, and 
stay till it was twenty. The children should 
all live apart, in order not to quarrel, and 
should meet once or twice a day and bow to 
each other. I think that each should learn a 
different language, so as not to converse, and 
then, perhaps, they would not get each other 
into mischief.” 

“ I am sure, auntie,” said Kate, “ you have 


Malbone . 


181 


missed our small nephews and nieces ever 
since their visit ended. How still the house 
has been ! ” 

' “ I do not know,” was the answer. “ I hear 
a great many noises about the house. Some- 
body comes in late at night. Perhaps it is 
Philip ; but he comes very softly in, wipes his 
feet very gently, like a clean thief, and goes 
up stairs. ,, 

“ O auntie ! ” said Kate, “ you know you 
have got over all such fancies.” 

“They are not fancies,” said Aunt Jane. 
“Things do happen in houses l Did I not 
look under the bed for a thief during fifteen 
years, and find one at last ? Why should I 
not be allowed to hear something now ? ” 

“But, dear Aunt Jane,” said Kate, “you 
never told me this before.” 

“No,” said she. “I was beginning to tell 
you the other day, but Ruth was just bringing 
in my handkerchiefs, and she had used so 
much bluing they looked as if they had been 
washed in heaven, so that it was too out- 
rageous, and I forgot everything else.” 

“ But do you really hear anything ? ” 

“ Yes,” said her aunt. “ Ruth declares she 
hears noises in those closets that I had 


Malbone. 


nailed up, you know ; but that is nothing ; of 
course she does. Rats. What I hear at night 
is the creaking of stairs, when I know that 
nobody ought to be stirring. If you observe, 
you will hear it too. At least, I should think 
you would, only that somehow everything 
always seems to stop, when it is necessary 
to prove that I am foolish.” 

The girls had no especial engagement that 
evening, and so got into a great excitement on 
the stairway over Aunt Jane’s solicitudes. 
They convinced themselves that they heard all 
sorts of things, — footfalls on successive steps, 
the creak of a plank, the brushing of an arm 
against a wall, the jar of some suspended 
object that was stirred in passing. Once 
they heard something fall on the floor, and roll 
from step to step ; and yet they themselves 
stood on the stairway, and nothing passed. 
Then for some time there was silence, but 
they would have persisted in their observa- 
tions, had not Philip come in from Mrs. Mere- 
dith’s in the midst of it, so that the whole 
thing turned into a frolic, and they sat on the 
stairs and told ghost stories half the night. 


Malbone . 


i«3 


XVII. 

DISCOVERY. 

^pHE next evening Kate and Philip went 
to a ball. As Hope was passing through 
the hall late in the evening, she heard a sud- 
den, sharp cry somewhere in the upper 
regions, that sounded, she thought, like a 
woman’s voice. She stopped' to hear, but 
there was silence. It seemed to come from 
the direction of Malbone’s room, which was 
in the third story. Again came the cry, more 
gently, ending in a sort of sobbing monologue. 
Gliding rapidly up stairs in the dark, she 
paused at Philip’s deserted room, but the 
door was locked, and there was profound 
stillness. She then descended, and pausing 
at the great landing, heard* other steps de-* 
scending also. Retreating to the end of the 
hall, she hastily lighted a candle,** when the 
steps ceased. With her accustomed nerve, 
wishing to explore the thing thoroughly, 
she put out the light and kept still. As she 
expected, the footsteps presently recommenced. 


184 


Malbone . 


descending stealthily, but drawing no nearer, 
and seeming rather like sounds from an 
adjoining house, heard through a party-wall. 
This was impossible, as the house stood alone. 
Flushed with excitement, she relighted the 
hall candles, and, taking one of them, searched 
the whole entry and stairway, going down even 
to the large, old-fashioned cellar. 

Looking about her in this unfamiliar region, 
her eye fell on a door that seemed to open into 
the wall ; she had noticed a similar door on 
the story above, — one of the closet doors that 
had been nailed up by Aunt Jane’s order. As 
she looked, however, a chill breath blew in 
from another direction, extinguishing her lamp. 
This air came from the outer door of the cel- 
lar, and she had just time to withdraw into a 
corner before a man’s steps approached, pass- 
ing close by her. 

Even Hope’s strong nerves had begun to 
yield, and a cold shudder went through her. 
Not daring to move, she pressed herself 
against the wall, and her heart seemed to 
stop as the unseen stranger passed. Instead 
of his ascending where she had come down, 
as she had expected, she heard him grope his 
way toward the door she had seen in the wall. 


M alb one. 


185 


There he seemed to find a stairway, and when 
his steps were thus turned from her, she was 
seized by a sudden impulse and followed him, 
groping her way as she could. She remem- 
bered that the girls had talked of secret stair- 
ways in that house, though she had no con- 
ception whither they could lead, unless to 
some of the shut-up closets. 

She steadily followed, treading cautiously 
upon each creaking step. The stairway was 
very narrow, and formed a regular spiral as in 
a turret. The darkness and the curving mo- 
tion confused her brain, and it was impossible 
to tell how high in the house she was, except 
when once she put her hand upon what was 
evidently a door, and moreover saw through 
• its cracks the lamp she had left burning in the 
upper hall. This glimpse of reality reassured 
her. She had begun to discover where she 
was. The doors which Aunt Jane had closed 
gave access, not to mere closets, but to a spi- 
ral stairway, which evidently went from top to 
bottom of the house, and was known to some 
one else beside herself. 

Relieved of that slight shudder at the super- 
natural which sometimes affects the healthiest 
nerves, Hope paused to consider. To alarm 


Malbone. 


1 86 

the neighborhood was her first thought. A 
slight murmuring from above dispelled it ; she 
must first reconnoitre a few steps farther. As 
she ascended a little way, a gleam shone upon 
her, and down the damp stairway came a fra- 
grant odor, as from some perfumed chamber. 
Then a door was shut and reopened. Eager 
beyond expression, she followed on. Another 
step, and she stood at the door of Malbone’s 
apartment. 

The room was brilliant with light ; the 
doors and windows were heavily draped. 
Fruit and flowers and wine were on the 
table.. On the sofa lay Emilia in a gay ball- 
dress, sunk in one of her motionless trances, 
while Malbone, pale with terror, was deluging 
her brows with the water he had just brought 
from the well below. 

Hope stopped a moment and leaned against 
the door, as her eyes met Malbone’s. Then 
she made her way to a chair, and leaning on 
the back of it, which she fingered convulsively, 
looked with bewildered eyes and compressed 
lips from the one to the other. Malbone tried 
to speak, but failed ; tried again, and brought 
forth only a whisper that broke into clearer 
speech as the words went on. “ No use to 


Malbone . 


187 


explain,” he said. “ Lambert is in New York. 
Mrs. Meredith is expecting her — to-night — 
after the ball. What can we do ? ” 

Hope covered her face as he spoke ; she 
could bear anything better than to have him 
say “ we,” as if no gulf had opened between 
them. She sank slowly on her knees behind 
her chair, keeping it as a sort of screen be- 
tween herself and these two people, — the 
counterfeits, they seemed, of her lover and 
her sister. If the roof in falling to crush 
them had crushed her also, she could scarcely 
have seemed more rigid or more powerless. 
It passed, and the next moment she was on 
her feet again, capable of action. 

“ She must be taken,” she said very clearly, 
but in a lower tone than usual, “ to my cham- 
ber.” Then pointing to the candles, she said, 
more huskily, “We must not be seen. Put 
them out.” Every syllable seemed to exhaust 
her. But as Philip obeyed her words, he' saw 
her move suddenly and stand by Emilia’s side. 

She put out both arms as if to lift the young 
girl, and carry her away. 

“You cannot,” said Philip, putting her gen- 
tly aside, while she shrank from his touch. 
Then he took Emilia in his arms and bore her 
to the door, Hope preceding. 


i88 


Malbone . 


Motioning him to pause a moment, she 
turned the lock .softly, and looked out into 
the dark entry. All was still. She went out, 
and he followed with his motionless burden. 
They walked stealthily, like guilty things, yet 
every slight motion seemed to ring in their 
ears. It was chilly, and Hope shivered. 
Through the great open window on the stair- 
way a white fog peered in at them, and the 
distant fog-whistle came faintly through ; it 
seemed as if the very atmosphere were con- 
densing about them, to isolate the' house in 
which such deeds were done. The clock 
struck twelve, and it seemed as if it struck 
a thousand. 

When they reached Hope’s door, she turned 
and put out her arms for Emilia, as for a 
child. Every expression had now gone from 
Hope’s face but a sort of stony calmness, 
which put her infinitely farther from Malbone 
than had the momentary struggle. As he 
gave the girlish form into arms that shook and 
trembled beneath its weight, he caught a 
glimpse in the pier-glass of their two white 
faces, and then, looking down, saw the rose- 
tints yet lingering on Emilia’s cheek. She, 
the source of all this woe, looked the only rep- 


Malbone. 189 

resentative of innocence between two guilty 
things. 

How white and pure and maidenly looked 
Hope’s little room, — such a home of peace, he 
thought, till its door suddenly opened to ad- 
mit all this passion and despair ! There was 
a great sheaf of cardinal flowers on the table, 
and their petals were drooping, as if reluctant 
to look. on him. Scheffer’s Christus Consola- 
tor was upon the walls, and the benign figure 
seemed to spread wider its arms ‘ of mercy, to 
take in a few sad hearts more. 

Hope bore Emilia into the light and purity 
and warmth, while Malbone was shut out into 
the darkness and the chill. The only two 
things to which he clung on earth, the two 
women between whom his unsteady heart 
had vibrated, and both whose lives had been 
tortured by its vacillation, went away from 
his sight together, the one victim bearing the 
other victim in her arms. Never any more 
while he lived would either of them be his 
again ; and had Dante known it for his last 
glimpse of things immortal when the two 
lovers floated away from him in their sad 
embrace, he would have had no such sense 
of utter banishment as had Malbone then. 


Malbone . 


190 


XVIII. 

HOPE’S VIGIL. 

H AD Emilia chosen out of life’s whole 
armory of weapons the means of dis- 
arming Hope, she could have found nothing 
so effectual ‘as nature had supplied in her un- 
consciousness. Helplessness conquers. There 
was a quality in Emilia which would have 
always produced something very like antago- 
nism in Hope, had she not been her sister. 
Had the ungoverned girl now been able to 
utter one word of reproach, had her eyes 
flashed one look of defiance, had her hand 
made one triumphant or angry gesture, per- 
haps all Hope’s outraged womanhood would 
have coldly nerved itself against her. But it 
was another thing to see those soft eyes closed, 
those delicate hands powerless, those pleading 
lips sealed ; to see her extended in graceful 
helplessness, while all the concentrated drama 
of emotion revolved around her unheeded, as 
around Cordelia dead. In what realms was 
that child’s mind seeking comfort ; through 


Malbone. 




i 9 i 


what thin air of dreams did that restless heart 
beat its pinions ; in what other sphere did that 
untamed nature wander, while shame and sor- 
row waited for its awakening in this ? 


Hope knelt upon the floor, still too much 
strained and bewildered for tears or even 
prayer, a little way from Emilia. Once hav- 
ing laid down the unconscious form, it seemed 
for a moment as if she could no more touch it 
than she could lay her hand amid flames. A 
gap of miles, of centuries, of solar systems, 
seemed to separate these two young girls, 
alone within the same chamber, with the same 
stern secret to keep, and so near, that the hem 
of their garments almost touched each other 
on the soft carpet. Hope felt a terrible hard- 
ness closing over her heart. What right had 
this cruel creature, with her fatal witcheries, 
to come between two persons who might have 
been so wholly happy ? What sorrow would 
be saved, what shame, perhaps, be averted, 
should those sweet beguiling eyes never open, 
and that perfidious voice never deceive any 
more ? Why tend the life of one who would 
leave the whole world happier, purer, freer, 
if she were dead ? 

In a tumult of thought, Hope went and sat 


192 


Malbone . 


half-unconsciously by the window. There was 
nothing to be seen except the steady beacon 
of the light-house and a pale-green glimmer, 
like an earthly star, from an anchored vessel. 
The night wind came softly in, soothing her 
with a touch like a mother’s, in its grateful 
coolness. The air seemed full of half-vibra- 
tions, sub-noises, that crowded it as com- 
pletely as do the insect sounds of midsummer ; 
yet she could only distinguish the ripple be- 
neath her feet, and the rote on the distant 
beach, and the busy wash of waters against 
every shore and islet of the bay. The mist 
was thick around her, but she knew that 
above it hung the sleepless stars, and the 
fancy came over her that perhaps the whole 
vast interval, from ocean up to sky, might be 
densely filled with the disembodied souls of 
her departed human kindred, waiting to see 
how she would endure that path of grief in 
which their steps had gone before. “ It may 
be from this influence,” she vaguely mused 
within herself, “ that the ocean derives its end- 
less song of sorrow. Perhaps we shall know 
its meaning when we understand that of the 
stars, and of our own sad lives.” 

She rose again and went to the bedside. It 


Malbone . 193 

all seemed like a dream, and she was able to look 
at Emilia’s existence and at her own and at all 
else, as if it were a great way off ; as we watch 
the stars and know that no speculations of ours 
can reach those who there live or die untouched. 
Here beside her lay one who was dead, yet 
living, in her temporary trance, and to what 
would she wake, when it should end ? This 
young creature had been sent into the 
world so fresh, so beautiful, so richly gifted ; 
everything about her physical organization 
was so delicate and lovely; she had seemed 
like heliotrope, like a tube-rose in her purity 
and her passion (who was it said/ “No heart 
is pure that is not passionate ” ?) ; and here 
was the end ! Nothing external could have 
placed her where she was, no violence, no 
outrage, no evil of another’s doing, could 
have reached her real life without her own 
consent ; and now what kind of existence, 
what career, what possibility of happiness re- 
mained ? Why could not God in his mercy 
take her, and give her to his holiest angels 
for schooling, ere it was yet too late ? 

Hope went and sat by the window once 
more. Her thoughts still clung heavily around 
one thought, as the white fog clung round the 
9 m 


194 


Malbone. 


house. Where should she see any light? What 
opening for extrication, unless, indeed, Emilia 
should die ? There could be no harm in that 
thought, for she knew it was not to be, and 
that the swoon would not last much longer. 
Who could devise anything ? No one. There 
was nothing. Almost always in perplexities 
there is some thread by resolutely holding to 
which one escapes at last. Here there was 
none. There could probably be no conceal- 
ment, certainly no explanation. In a few days 
John Lambert would return, and then the 
storm must break. He was probably a stern, 
jealous man, whose very dulness, once aroused, 
would be more formidable than if he had 
possessed keener perceptions. 

Still her thoughts did not dwell on Philip. 
He was simply a part of that dull mass of pain 
that beset her and made her feel, as she had 
felt when drowning, that her heart had left her 
breast and nothing but will remained. She 
felt now, as then, the capacity to act with 
more than her accustomed resolution, though 
all that was within her seemed boiling up into 
her brain. As for Philip, all seemed a mere 
negation ; there was a vacuum where his place 
had been. At most the thought of him came 


Malbone. 


195 


to her as some strange, vague thrill of added 
torture, penetrating her soul and then pass- 
ing ; just as ever and anon there came the 
sound of the fog-whistle on Brenton’s Reef, 
miles, away, piercing the dull air with its shrill 
and desolate wail, then dying into silence. 

What a hopeless cloud lay upon them all 
forever, — upon Kate, upon Harry, upon their 
whole house ! Then there was John Lam- 
bert ; how could they keep it from him ? how 
could they tell him ? Who could predict 
what he would say ? Would he take the 
worst and coarsest view of his young wife’s 
mad action or the mildest ? Would he be 
strong or weak ; and what would be weak- 
ness, and what strength, in a position so 
strange ? Would he put Emilia from him, 
send her out in the world desolate, her soul 
stained but by one wrong passion, yet with 
her reputation blighted as if there were no 
good in her? Could he be asked to shield 
and protect her, or what would become of her? 
She was legally a wife, and could only be 
separated from him through convicted shame. 

Then, if separated, she could only marry 
Philip. Hope nerved herself to think of that, 
and it cost less effort than she expected. 


Malbone. 


196 

There seemed a numbness on that side, in- 
stead of pain. But granting that he loved 
Emilia ever so deeply, was he a man to sur- 
render his life and his ease and his fair name, 
in a hopeless effort to remove the ban that the 
world would place on her. Hope knew he- 
would not ; knew that even the simple-hearted 
and straightforward Harry would be far more 
capable of such heroism than the sentimental 
Malbone. Here the pang suddenly struck 
her ; she was not so numb, after all ! 

As the leaves beside the window drooped 
motionless in the dank air, so her mind 
drooped into a settled depression. She pitied 
herself, — that lowest ebb of melancholy self- 
consciousness. She went back to Emilia, and, 
seating herself, studied every line of the girl’s 
face, the soft texture of her hair, the veining of 
her eyelids. They were so lovely, she felt a 
sort of physical impulse to kiss them, as if 
they belonged to some utter stranger, whom 
she might be nursing in a hospital. Emilia 
looked as innocent as when Hope had tended 
her in the cradle. What is there, Hope 
thought, in sleep, in trance, and in death, that 
removes all harsh or disturbing impressions, 
and leaves only the most delicate and purest 


Malbone, 


1 97 


traits ? Does the mind wander, and does 
an angel keep its place ? Or is there really 
no sin but • in thought, and are our sleeping 
thoughts incapable of sin ? Perhaps even 
when we dream of doing wrong, the dream 
comes in a shape so lovely and misleading 
that we never recognize it for evil, and it 
makes' no stain. Are our lives ever so pure as 
our dreams ? 

This thought somehow smote across her 
conscience, always so strong, and stirred it 
into a kind of spasm of introspection. “ How 
selfish have I, too, been ! ” she thought. “ I 
saw only what I wished to see, did' only what 
I preferred. Loving Philip ” (for the sudden 
self-reproach left her free to think of him), “ I 
could not see that I was separating him from 
one whom he might perhaps have truly loved. 
If he made me blind, may he not easily have 
bewildered her, and have been himself bewil- 
dered ? How I tried to force myself upon 
him, too ! Ungenerous, unwomanly ! What 
am I, that I should judge another ?” 

She threw herself on her knees at the bed- 
side. 

Still Emilia slept, but now she stirred her 
head in the slightest possible way, so that a 


198 


Malbone. 


single tress of silken hair slipped from its 
companions, and lay across her face. It was 
a faint sign that the trance was waning ; the 
slight pressure disturbed her nerves, and her 
lips trembled once or twice, as if to relieve 
themselves of the soft annoyance. Hope 
watched her in a vague, distant way, took 
note of the minutest motion, yet as if some 
vast weight hung upon her own limbs and 
made all interference impossible. Still there 
was a fascination of sympathy in dwelling on 
that atom of discomfort, that tiny suffering, 
which she alone could remove. The very 
vastness of this tragedy that hung about the 
house made it an inexpressible relief to her to 
turn and concentrate her thoughts for a mo- 
ment on this slight distress, so easily ended. 

Strange, by what slender threads our lives 
are knitted to each other! Here was one 
who had taken Hopes whole existence in 
her hands, crushed it, and thrown it away. 
Hope had soberly said to herself, just before, 
that death would be better than life for her 
young sister. Yet now it moved her beyond 
endurance to see that fair form troubled, even 
while unconscious, by a feather’s weight of 
pain ; and all the lifelong habit of tenderness 
resumed in a moment its sway. 


Malbone. 


199 


She approached her fingers to the offend- 
ing tress, very slowly, half withholding them 
at the very last, as if the touch would burn her. 
She was almost surprised that it did not. She 
looked to see if it did not hurt Emilia. But it 
now seemed as if the slumbering girl enjoyed 
the caressing contact of the smooth fingers, 
and turned her head, almost imperceptibly, to 
meet them. This was more than Hope could 
bear. It was as if that slight motion were a 
puncture to relieve her overburdened heart ; 
a thousand thoughts swept over her, — of their 
father, of her sister’s childhood, of her years 
of absent expectation ; she thought how young 
the girl was, how fascinating, how passionate, 
how tempted; all this swept across her in a 
great wave of nervous reaction, and when 
Emilia returned to consciousness, she was ly- 
ing in her sister’s arms, her face bathed in 
Hope’s tears. 


200 


Malbone . 


XIX. 

DE PROFUNDIS. 

T HIS was the history of Emilia’s con- 
cealed visits to Malbone. 

One week after her marriage, in a crisis of 
agony, Emilia took up her pen, dipped it in 
fire, and wrote thus to him : — 

“ Philip Malbone, why did nqbody ever tell 
me what marriage is where there is no love ? 
This man who calls, himself my husband is no 
worse, I suppose, than other men. It is only 
for being what is called by that name that I 
abhor him. Good God ! what am I to do ? It 
was not for money that I married him, — that 
you know very well ; I cared no more for his 
money than for himself. I thought it was the 
only way to save Hope. She has been very 
good to me, and perhaps I should love her, if 
I could love anybody. Now I have done what 
will only make more misery, for I cannot bear 
it. Philip, I am alone in this wide world, ex- 
cept for you. Tell me what to do. I will 
haunt you till you die, unless you tell me. 
Answer this, or I will write again.” 


Mcilbone. 


201 


Terrified by this letter, absolutely powerless 
to guide the life with which he had so desper- 
ately entangled himself, Philip let one day pass 
without answering, and that evening he found 
Emilia at his door, she having glided unnoticed 
up the main stairway. She was so excited, it 
was equally dangerous to send her away or to 
admit her, and he drew her in, darkening the 
windows and locking the door. On the whole, 
it was not so bad as he expected ; at least, 
there was less violence and more despair. She 
covered her face with her hands, and writhed 
in anguish, when she said that she had utterly 
degraded herself by this loveless marriage. 
She scarcely mentioned her husband. She 
made no complaint of him, and even spoke of 
him as generous. It seemed as if this made 
it worse, and as if she would be happier if she 
could expend herself in hating him. She 
spoke of him rather as a mere witness to some 
shame for which she herself was responsible ; 
bearing him no malice, but tortured by the 
thought that he should exist. 

Then she turned on Malbone. “ Philip, why 
did you ever interfere with my life ? I should 
have been very happy with Antoine if you 
had let me marry him, for I never should have 
9 * 


202 


Malbone . 


known what it was to love you. Oh ! I wish 
he were here now, even he, — any one who 
loved me truly, and whom I could love only a 
little. I would go away with such a person 
anywhere, and never trouble you and Hope 
any more. What shall I do? Philip, you 
might tell me what to do. Once you told me 
always to come to you.” 

“ What can you do ? ” he asked gloomily, in 
return. 

“ I cannot imagine,” she said, with a deso- 
late look, more pitiable than passion, on her 
young face. “ I wish to save Hope, and to 
save my — to save Mr. Lambert. Philip, you 
do not love me. I do not call it love. There 
is no passion in your veins ; it is only a sort 
of sympathetic selfishness. Hope is infinitely 
better than you are, and I believe she is more 
capable of loving. I began by hating her, 
but if she loves you as I think she does, she 
has treated me more generously" than ever one 
woman treated another. For she could not 
look at me and not know that I loved you. I 
did love you. O Philip, tell me what to do !” 

Such beauty in anguish, the thrill of the 
possession of such love, the possibility of 
soothing by tenderness the wild mood which 


Malbone. 


203 


he could not meet by counsel, — it would have 
taken a stronger or less sympathetic nature 
than Malbone’s to endure all this. It swept 
him away ; this revival of passion was irre- 
sistible. When her pent-up feeling was once 
uttered, she turned to his love as a fancied 
salvation. It was a terrible remedy. She had 
never looked more beautiful, and yet she 
seemed to have grown old at once; her very 
caresses appeared to burn. She lingered and 
lingered, and still he kept her there ; and 
when it was no longer possible for her to go 
without disturbing the house, he led her to a 
secret spiral stairway, which went from attic 
to cellar of that stately old mansion, and 
which opened by one or more doors on each 
landing, as his keen eye had found out. De- 
scending this, he went forth with her into the 
dark and silent night. The mist hung around 
the house ; the wet leaves fluttered and fell- 
upon their cheeks ; the water lapped desolate- 
ly against the pier. Philip found a carriage 
and sent her back to Mrs. Meredith’s, where 
she was staying during the brief absence of 
John Lambert. 

These concealed meetings, once begun, be- 
came an absorbing excitement. She came 


204 


Malbone . 


several times, staying half an hour, an hour, 
two hours. They were together long enough 
for suffering, never long enough for soothing. 
It was a poor substitute for happiness. Each 
time she came, Malbone wished that she might 
never go or never return. His warier nature 
was feverish with solicitude and with self-re- 
proach ; he liked the excitement of slight risks, 
but this was far too intense, the vibrations too 
extreme. She, on the other hand, rode trium- 
phant over waves of passion which cowed him. 
He dared not exclude her ; he dared not con- 
tinue to admit her ; he dared not free himself; 
he could not be happy. The privacy of the 
concealed stairway saved them from outward 
dangers, but not from inward fears. Their in- 
terviews were first blissful, then anxious, then 
sad, then stormy. It was at the end of such 
a storm that Emilia had passed into one of 
those deathly calms which belonged to her 
physical temperament ; and it was under these 
circumstances that Hope had followed Philip 
to the door. 


Malbone. 


205 


XX. 


AUNT JANE TO THE RESCUE. 

HE thing that saves us from insanity 



during great grief is that there is usual- 
ly something to do, and the mind composes 
itself to the mechanical task of adjusting the 
details. Hope dared not look forward an inch 
into the future ; that way madness lay. For- 
tunately, it was plain what must come first, — 
to keep the whole thing within their own walls, 
and therefore to make some explanation to 
Mrs. Meredith, whose servants had doubtless 
been kept up all night awaiting Emilia. Pro- 
foundly perplexed what to say or not to say to 
her, Hope longed with her whole soul for an 
adviser. Harry and Kate were both away, and 
besides, she shrank from darkening their young 
lives as hers had been darkened. She resolved 
to seek counsel in the one person who most 
thoroughly distrusted Emilia, — Aunt Jane. 

This lady was in a particularly happy mood 
that day. Emilia, who did all kinds of fine 
needle-work exquisitely, had just embroidered 


20 6 


Malbone, 


for Aunt Jane some pillow-cases. The origi- 
nal suggestion came from Hope, but it never 
cost Emilia anything to keep a secret, and she 
had presented the gift very sweetly, as if it 
were a thought of her own. Aunt Jane, who 
with all her penetration as to facts was often . 
very guileless as to motives, was thoroughly 
touched by the humility and the embroidery. 

“ All last night,” she said, “ I kept waking 
up, and thinking about Christian charity and 
my pillow-cases.” 

It was, therefore, a very favorable day for 
Hope’s consultation, though it was nearly 
noon before her aunt was visible, perhaps be- 
cause it took so long to make up her bed with 
the new adornments. 

Hope said frankly to Aunt Jane that there 
were some circumstances about which she 
should rather not be questioned, but that 
Emilia had come there the previous night 
from the ball, had been seized with one of her 
peculiar attacks, and had stayed all night. 
Aunt Jane kept her eyes steadily fixed on 
Hope’s sad face, and, when the tale was ended, 
drew her down and kissed her lips. 

“ Now tell me, dear,” she said ; “what comes 
first?” 


Malbone. 


207 


“The first thing is,” said Hope, “to have 
Emilia’s absence explained to Mrs. Meredith 
in some such way that she will think no more 
of it, and not talk about it.” 

“Certainly,” said Aunt Jane. “There is 
but one way to do that. I will call on her 
myself.” 

“ You, auntie ? ” said Hope. 

“ Yes, I,” said her aunt. “ I have owed her 
a call for five years. It is the only thing 
that will 4 excite her so much as to put all else 
out of her head.” 

“ O auntie ! ” said Hope, greatly relieved, 
“ if you only would ! But ought you really to 
go out ? It is almost raining.” 

“ I shall go,” said Aunt Jane, decisively, “ if 
it rains little boys !” 

“But will not Mrs. Meredith wonder — ?” 
began Hope. 

“That is one advantage,” interrupted her 
aunt, “ of being an absurd old woman. No- 
body ever wonders at anything I do, or else it 
is that they never stop wondering.” 

She sent Ruth erelong to order the horses. 
Hope collected her various wrappers, and 
Ruth, returning, got her mistress into a state 
of preparation. 


20S 


Malbone. 


“If I might say one thing more,” Hope 
whispered. 

“Certainly,” said her, aunt. “Ruth, go to 
my chamber, and get me a pin.” 

“ What kind of a pin, ma’am ? ” asked that 
meek handmaiden, from the doorway. 

“ What a question ! ” said her indignant 
mistress. “ Any kind. The common pin of 
North America. Now, Hope?” as the door 
closed. 

“ I think it better, auntie,” said Hoj5e, “ that 
Philip should not stay here longer at present. 
You can truly say that the house is full, 
and -” 

“I have just had a note from him,” said 
Aunt Jane, severely. “ He has gone to lodge 
at the hotel. What next ? ” 

“Aunt Jane,” said Hope, looking her full 
in the face, “I have not the slightest idea 
what to do next.” 

(“ The next thing for me,” thought her aunt, 
“ is to have a little plain speech with that mis- 
guided child upstairs.”) 

“ I can see no way out,” pursued Hope. 

“ Darling !” said Aunt Jane, with a voice 
full of womanly sweetness, “ there is always a 
way out, or else the world would have stopped 


Malbone. 


209 


long ago. Perhaps it would have been better 
if it had stopped, but you see it has not. All 
we can do is, to live on and try our best.” 

She bade Hope leave Emilia to her, and 
furthermore stipulated that Hope should go to 
her pupils as usual, that afternoon, as it was 
their last lesson. The young girl shrank from 
the effort, but the elder lady was inflexible. 
She had her own purpose in it. Hope once 
out of the way, Aunt Jane could deal with 
Emilia. 

No human being, when met face to face 
with Aunt Jane, had ever failed "to yield up to 
her the whole truth she sought. Emilia was 
on that day no exception. She was prostrate, 
languid, humble, denied nothing, was ready to 
concede every point but one. Never, while 
she lived, would she dwell beneath John Lam- 
bert’s roof again. She had left it impulsively, 
she admitted, scarce knowing what she did. 
But she would never return there to live. She 
would go once more and see that all was in 
order for Mr. Lambert, both in the house 
and on board the yacht, where they were to 
have taken up their abode for a time. There 
were new servants in the house, a new captain 
on the yacht ; she would trust Mr. Lambert’s 


210 


Malbone . 


comfort to none of them ; she would do her 
full duty. Duty ! the more utterly she felt 
herself to be gliding away from him forever, 
the more pains she was ready to lavish in do- 
ing these nothings well. About every insig- 
nificant article he owned she seemed to feel 
the most scrupulous and wife-like responsibili- 
ty ; while she yet knew that all she had was to 
him nothing, compared with the possession of 
herself ; and it was the thought of this last 
ownership that drove her to despair. 

Sweet and plaintive as the child’s face was, 
it had a glimmer of wildness and a hunted 
look, that baffled Aunt Jane a little, and com- 
pelled her to temporize. She consented that 
Emilia should go to her own house, on condi- 
tion that she would not see Philip, — which 
was readily and even eagerly promised, — 
and that Hope should spend that night with 
Emilia, which proposal was ardently accepted. 

It occurred to Aunt Jane that nothing bet- 
ter could happen than for John Lambert, on 
returning, to find his wife at home ; and to 
secure this result, if possible, she telegraphed 
to him to come at once. 

Meantime Hope gave her inevitable music- 
lesson, so absorbed in her own thoughts that it 


M alb one. 


2 1 1 


was all as mechanical as the metronome. As 
she came out upon the Avenue for the walk 
home, she saw a group of people from a gar- 
dener’s house, who had collected beside a 
muddy crossing, where a team of cart-horses 
had refused to stir. Presently they sprang 
forward with a great jerk, and a little Irish 
child was thrown beneath the wheel. Hope 
sprang forward to grasp the child, and the 
wheel struck her also ; but she escaped with 
a dress torm and smeared, while the cart 
passed over the little girl’s arm, breaking it 
in two places. She screamed and then grew 
faint, as Hope lifted her. The mother re- 
ceived the burden with a w&il of anguish ; 
the other Irishwomen pressed around her 
with the dense, and suffocating sympathy of 
their nation. Hope bade one and another 
run for a physician, but nobody stirred. 
There was no surgical aid within a mile or 
more. Hope looked round in despair, then 
glanced at her own disordered garments. 

“ As sure as you live ! ” shouted a well- 
known voice from a carriage which had 
stopped behind them. “If that is n’t Hope 
what’s-her-name, wish I may never ! Here ’s 
a lark ! Let me come there ! ” And the 
speaker pushed through the crowd. 


212 


Malbone. 


“Miss Ingleside,” said Hope, decisively, 
“ this child’s arm is broken. There is nobody 
to go for a physician. Except for the condition 
I am in, I would ask you to take me there at 
once in your carriage ; but as it is — ” 

“ As it is, I must ask you, hey ? ” said 
Blanche, finishing the sentence. “ Of course. 
No mistake. Sans dire. Jones, junior, this 
lady will join us. Don’t look- so scared, man. 
Are you anxious about your cushions or your 
reputation ? ” 

The youth simpered and disclaimed. 

“Jump in, then, Miss Maxwell. Never 
mind the expense. It’s only the family car- 
riage ; — surname and arms of Jones. Lucky 
there are no parents to the fore. Put my 
shawl over you, so.” 

“O Blanche!” said Hope, “what injus- 
tice—” 

“I ’ve done myself?” said the volatile dam- 
sel. “ Not a doubt of it. That ’s my style, 
you know. But I have some sense ; I know 
who’s who. Now, Jones, junior, make your 
man handle the ribbons. I ’ve always had a 
grudge against that ordinance about fast driv- 
ing, and now ’s our chance.” 

And the sacred “ ordinance,” with all other 


Mctlbone . 


213 


proprieties, was left in ruins that day. They 
tore along the Avenue with unexplained and 
most inexplicable speed, Hope being concealed 
by riding backward, and by a large shawl, and 
Blanche and her admirer receiving the full in- 
dignation of every chaste and venerable eye. 
Those who had tolerated all this girl’s previous 
improprieties were obliged to admit J;hat the 
line must be drawn somewhere. She at once 
lost several good invitations and a matrimo- 
nial offer, since Jones, junior, was swept away 
by his parents to be wedded without delay to 
a consumptive heiress who had long pined for 
his whiskers ; and 'Count Posen, in his Sou- 
venirs , was severer on Blanche’s one good 
deed than on the worst of her follies. 

A few years after, when Blanche, then the 
fearless wife of a regular-army officer, was 
helping Hope in the hospitals at Norfolk, she 
would stop to shout with delight over the remi- 
niscence of that stately Jones equipage in mad 
career, amid the barking of dogs and the 
groaning of dowagers. “After all, Hope,” 
she would say, “ the fastest thing I ever did 
was under your orders.” 


214 


Malbone. 


XXL 


A STORM. 


HE members of the household were all 



■JL at the window about* noon, next day, 
watching the rise of a storm. A murky wing 
of cloud, shaped like a hawk’s, hung over the 
low western hills across the bay. Then the 
hawk became an eagle, and the eagle a gigan- 
tic phantom, that hovered over half the visible 
sky. Beneath it, a little scud of vapor, moved 
by some cross-current of air, raced rapidly 
against the wind, just above the horizon, like 
smoke from a battle-field. 

As the cloud ascended, the water grew rap- 
idly blacker, and in half an hour broke into 
jets of white foam, all over its surface, with 
an angry look. Meantime a white film of fog 
spread down the bay from the northward. 
The wind hauled from southwest to northwest, 
so suddenly and strongly that all the anchored 
boats seemed to have swung round instantane- 
ously, without visible process. The instant the 
wind shifted, the rain broke forth, filling the 


Malbone . 


215 


air in a moment with its volume, and cutting 
so sharply that it seemed like hail, though no 
hailstones reached the ground. At the same 
time there rose upon the water a dense white 
film, which seemed to grow together from a 
hundred different directions, and was made 
partly of rain, and partly of the blown edges 
of the spray. There was but a glimpse of 
this ; for in a few moments it was impossible 
to see two rods ; but when the first gust was 
over, the water showed itself again, the jets of 
spray all beaten down, and regular waves, of 
dull lead-color, breaking higher on the shore. 
All the depth of blackness had left the sky, 
and there remained only an obscure and 
ominous gray, through which the lightning 
flashed white, not red. Boats came driving 
in from the mouth of the bay with a rag of 
sail up ; the men got them moored with diffi- 
culty, and when they sculled ashore in the 
skiffs, a dozen comrades stood ready to grasp 
and haul them in. Others launched skiffs in 
sheltered places, and pulled out bareheaded to 
bail out their fishing-boats and keep them 
from swamping at their moorings. 

The shore was thronged with men in oilskin 
clothes and by women with shawls over their 


21 6 


Malbone. 


heads. Aunt Jane, who always felt responsi- 
ble for whatever went on in the elements, sat 
in-doors with one lid closed, wincing at every 
flash, and watching the universe with the air 
of a coachman guiding six wild horses. 

Just after the storm had passed its height, 
two veritable wild horses were reined up at 
the door, and Philip burst in, his usual self- 
composure gone. 

“ Emilia is out sailing ! ” he exclaimed, 
— “ alone with Lambert’s boatman, in this 
gale. They say she was bound for Narra- 
gansett.” 

“ Impossible ! ” cried Hope, turning pale. 
“ I left her not three hours ago.” Then she 
remembered that Emilia had spoken of going 
on board the yacht, to superintend some ar- 
rangements, but had said no more about it, 
when she opposed it. 

“ Harry!” said Aunt Jane, quickly, from 
her chair by the window, “ see that fisherman. 
He has just come ashore and is telling some- 
thing. Ask him.” 

The fisherman had indeed seen Lambert’s 
boat, which was well known. Something 
seemed to be the matter with the sail, but be- 
fore the storm struck her, it had been hauled 


Malbo7ie. 


217 


down. They must have taken in water enough, 
as it was. He had himself been obliged to 
bail out three times, running in from the reef. 

“Was there any landing which they could 
reach ? ” Harry asked. 

There was none, — but the light-ship lay 
right in their track, and if they had good luck, 
they might get aboard of her. 

“ The boatman ? ” said Philip, anxiously, — 
“ Mr. Lambert’s boatman ; is he a good sail- 
or ? ” 

“ Don’t know,” was the reply. “ Stranger 
here. Dutchman, Frenchman, Portegee, or 
some kind of a foreigner.” 

“Seems to understand himself in a boat,” 
said another. 

“Mr. Malbone knows him,” said a third. 
“ The same that dove with the young woman 
under the steamboat paddles.” 

“ Good grit,” said the first. 

“ That ’s so,” was the answer. “ But grit 
don’t teach a man the channel.” 

All agreed to this axiom ; but as there was 
so strong a probability that the voyagers had 
reached the light-ship, there seemed less cause 
for fear. 

The next question was, whether it was pos- 
10 


218 


Malbone. 


sible to follow them. All agreed that it would 
be foolish for any boat to attempt it, till the 
wind had blown itself out, which might be 
within half an hour. After that, some pre- 
dicted a calm, some a fog, some a renewal of 
the storm ; there was the usual variety of 
opinions. At any rate, there might perhaps 
be an interval during which they could go out, 
if the gentlemen did not mind a wet jacket. 

Within the half-hour came indeed an inter- 
val of calm, and a light shone behind the 
clouds from the west. It faded soon into a 
gray fog, with puffs of wind from the south- 
west again. When the young men went out 
with the boatmen, the water had grown more 
quiet, save where angry little gusts ruffled it. 
But these gusts made it necessary to carry a 
double reef, and they made but little progress 
against wind and tide. 

A dark-gray fog, broken by frequent wind- 
flaws, makes the ugliest of all days on the 
water. A still, pale fog is soothing ; it lulls 
nature to a kind of repose. But a windy fog 
with occasional sunbeams and sudden films of 
metallic blue breaking the leaden water, — 
this carries an impression of something weird 
and treacherous in the universe, and suggests 
caution. 


Malbone. 


219 


As the boat floated on, every sight and 
sound appeared strange. The music from the 
fort came sudden and startling through the 
vaporous eddies. A tall white schooner rose 
instantaneously near them, like a light-house. 
They could see the steam of the factory float- 
ing low, seeking some outlet between cloud 
and water. As they drifted past a wharf, the 
great black piles of coal hung high and 
gloomy ; then a stray sunbeam brought out 
their peacock colors ; then came the fog again, 
driving hurriedly by, as if impatient to go 
somewhere and enraged at the obstacle. It 
seemed to hatfe a vast inorganic life of its 
own, a volition and a whim. It drew itself 
across the horizon like a curtain ; then ad- 
vanced in trampling armies up the bay ; then 
marched in masses northward ; then suddenly 
grew thin, and showed great spaces of sun- 
light ; then drifted across the low islands, like 
long tufts of wool ; then rolled itself away 
toward the horizon ; then closed in again, 
pitiless and gray. 

Suddenly something vast towered amid the 
mist above them. It was the French war-ship 
returned to her anchorage once more, and 
seeming in that dim atmosphere to be some- 


220 


Malbone. 


thing spectral and strange that had taken 
form out of the elements. The muzzles of 
great guns rose tier above tier, along her side ; 
great boats hung one above another, on 
successive pairs of davits, at her stern. So 
high was her hull, that the topmost boat and 
the topmost gun appeared to be suspended in 
middle air ; and yet this was but the begin- 
ning of her altitude. Above these were the 
heavy masts, seen dimly through the mist ; 
between these were spread eight dark lines of 
sailors’ clothes, which, with the massive yards 
above, looked like part of some ponderous 
framework built to reach the sky. This pro- 
longation of the whole dark mass toward the 
heavens had a portentous look to those who 
gazed from below ; and when the denser fog 
sometimes furled itself away from the topgal- 
lant masts, hitherto invisible, and showed 
them rising loftier yet, and the tricolor at the 
mizzen-mast-head looking down as if from the 
zenith, then they all seemed to appertain to 
something of more than human workmanship ; 
a hundred wild tales of phantom vessels came 
up to the imagination, and it was as if that 
one gigantic structure were expanding to fill 
all space from sky to sea. 


Malbone. 


221 


They were swept past it ; the fog closed 
in ; it was necessary to land near the Fort, 
and proceed on foot. They walked across 
-the rough peninsula, while the mist began to 
disperse again, and they were buoyant with 
expectation. As they toiled onward, the fog 
suddenly met them at the turn of a lane 
where it had awaited them, like an enemy. 
As they passed into those gray and impalpable 
arms, the whole world changed again. 

They walked toward the sound of the sea. 
As they approached it, the dull hue that lay 
upon it resembled that of the leaden sky. 
The two elements could hardly be distin- 
guished except as the white outlines of the 
successive breakers were lifted through the 
fog. The lines of surf appeared constantly to 
multiply upon the beach, and yet, on counting 
them, there were never any more. Sometimes, 
in the distance, masses of foam rose up like a 
wall where the horizon ought to be ; and, as 
the coming waves took form out of the unseen, 
it seemed as if no phantom were too vast or 
shapeless to come rolling in upon their dusky 
shoulders. 

Presently a frail gleam of something like 
the ghost of dead sunshine made them look 


222 


Malbone. 


toward the west. Above the dim roofs of 
Castle Hill mansion-house, the sinking sun 
showed luridly through two rifts of cloud, and 
then the swift motion of the nearer vapor 
veiled both sun and cloud, and banished 
them into almost equal remoteness. 

Leaving the beach on their right, and pass- 
ing the high rocks of the Pirate’s Cave, they 
presently descended to the water’s edge once 
more. The cliffs rose to a distorted height in 
the dimness ; sprays of withered grass nodded 
along the edge, like Ossian’s spectres. Light 
seemed to be vanishing from the universe, 
leaving them alone with the sea. And when 
a solitary loon uttered his wild cry, and rising, 
sped away into the distance, it was as if life 
were following light into an equal annihilation. 
That sense of vague terror, with which the 
ocean sometimes controls the fancy, began to 
lay its grasp on them. They remembered that 
Emilia, in speaking once of her intense shrink- 
ing from death, had said that the sea was the 
only thing from which she would not fear to 
meet it. 

Fog exaggerates both for eye and ear ; it is 
always a sounding-board for the billows ; and 
in this case, as often happens, the roar did not 


Malbone. 


223 


appear to proceed from the waves themselves, 
but from some source in the unseen horizon, 
as if the spectators were shut within a be- 
leaguered fortress, and this thundering noise 
came from an impetuous enemy outside. Ever 
and anon there was a distinct crash of heavier 
sound, as if some special barricade had at 
length been beaten in, and the garrison must 
look to their inner defences. 

The tide was unusually high, and 'scarcely 
receded with the ebb, though the surf in- 
creased ; the waves came in with constant 
rush and wail, and with an ominous rattle of 
pebbles on the little beaches, beneath the 
powerful suction of the undertow; and there 
were more and more of those muffled throbs 
along the shore which tell of coming danger 
as plainly as minute-guns. With these came 
mingled that yet more inexplicable humming 
which one hears at intervals in such times, 
like strains of music caught and tangled in 
the currents of stormy air, — strains which 
were perhaps the filmy thread on which tales 
of sirens and mermaids were first strung, and 
in which, at this time, they would fain recog- 
nize the voice of Emilia. 


224 


Malbone. 


XXII. 

OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 

S the night closed in, the wind rose 



steadily, still blowing from the south- 
west. In *Brenton’s kitchen they found a 
group round a great fire of driftwood ; some 
of these were fishermen who had with dif- 
ficulty made a landing on the beach, and 
who confirmed the accounts already given. 
The boat had been seen sailing for the Narra- 
gansett shore, and when the squall came, the 
boatman had lowered and reefed the sail, and 
stood for the lightship. They must be on 
board of her, if anywhere. 

“ They are safe there ? ” asked Philip, ea- 
gerly. 

“ Only place where they would be safe, 
then,” said the spokesman. 

“ Unless the light-ship parts,” said an old 
fellow. 

“ Parts ! ” said the other. “ Sixty fathom 
of two-inch chain, and old Joe talks about 
parting.” 


M alb one. 225 

“ Foolish, of course,” said Philip ; “ but it’s 
a dangerous shore.” 

“ That’s so,” was the answer. “ Never saw 
so many lines of reef show outside, neither.” 

“ There’s an old saying on this shore,” said 
Joe : — 

•“ When Price’s Neck goes to Brenton’s Reef, 

Body and soul will come to grief. 

But when Brenton’s Reef comes to Price’s Neck, 

Soul and body are both a wreck.” 

“ What does it mean ? ” asked Harry. 

“It only means,” said somebody, “that 
when you see it white all the way out from 
the Neck to the Reef, you can’t take the 
inside passage.” 

“ But what does the last half mean ? ” per- 
sisted Harry. 

“ Don’t know as I know,” said the veteran, 
and relapsed into silence, in which all joined 
him, while the wind howled and whistled out- 
side, and the barred windows shook. 

Weary and restless with vain waiting, they 
looked from the doorway at the weather. 
The door went back with a slam, and the gust 
swooped down on them with that special blast 
that always seems to linger just outside on 
such nights, ready for the first head that shows 


226 


Malbone . 


itself. They closed the dpor upon the flicker- 
ing fire and the uncouth shadows within, and 
went forth into the night. At first the solid 
blackness seemed to lay a weight on their 
foreheads. There was absolutely nothing to 
be seen but the two lights of the light-ship, 
glaring from the dark sea like a wolfs eyes 
from a cavern. They looked nearer and 
brighter than in ordinary nights, and appeared 
to the excited senses of the young men to 
dance strangely on the waves, and to be 
always opposite to them, as they moved along 
the shore with the wind almost at their backs. 

“ What did that old fellow mean ? ” said 
Malbone in Harry’s ear, as they came to a 
protected place and could hear each other, 
“by talking of Brenton’s Reef coming to 
Price’s Neck.” 

“ Some sailor’s doggerel,” said Harry, indif- 
ferently. “Here is Price’s Neck before us, 
and yonder is Brenton’s Reef.” 

“ Where ? ” said Philip, looking round be- 
wildered. 

The lights had gone, as if the wolf, weary 
of watching, had suddenly closed his eyes, 
and slumbered in his cave. 

Harry trembled and shivered. In Heaven’s 
name, what could this disappearance mean ? 


Malbone. 


227 


Suddenly a sheet of lightning came, so 
white and intense, it sent its light all the way 
out to the horizon and exhibited far-off vessels, 
that reeled and tossed and looked as if wan- 
dering without a guide. But this was not so 
startling as what it showed in the foreground. 

. There drifted heavily upon the waves, with- 
in full view from the shore, moving parallel 
to it, yet gradually approaching, an -uncouth 
shape that seemed a vessel and yet not a ves- 
sel; two stunted masts projected above, and 
below there could be read, in dark letters that 
apparently swayed and trembled in the wan 
lightning, as the thing moved on, 

* Brenton’s Reef. 

Philip, leaning against a rock, gazed into 
the darkness where the apparition had been ; 
even Harry felt a thrill of half-superstitious 
wonder, and listened half mechanically to a 
rough sailor’s voice at his ear: — 

“ God ! old Joe was right. There’s one 
wreck that is bound to make many. The 
light-ship has parted.” 

“ Drifting ashore,” said Harry, his accus- 
tomed clearness of head coming back at a 
flash. “ Where will she strike ? ” 


228 


Malbone . 


“ Price’s Neck,” said the sailor. 

Harry turned to Philip and spoke to him, 
shouting in his ear the explanation. Malbone’s 
lips moved mechanically, but he said nothing. 
Passively, he let Harry take him by the arm, 
and lead him on. 

Following the sailor, they rounded a pro- 
jecting point, and found themselves a little 
sheltered from the wind. Nojt knowing the 
region, they stumbled about among the rocks, 
and scarcely knew when they neared the surf, 
except when a wave came swashing round 
their very feet. Pausing at the end of a cove, 
they stood beside their conductor, and their 
eyes, now grown accustomed, could make out 
vaguely the outlines of the waves. 

The throat of the cove was so shoal and 
narrow, and the mass of the waves so great, 
that they reared their heads enormously, just 
outside, and spending their strength there, left 
a lower level within the cove. Yet sometimes 
a series of great billows would come straight 
on, heading directly for the entrance, and then 
the surface of the water within was seen to 
swell suddenly upward as if by a terrible in- 
ward magic of its own ; it rose and rose, as if 
it would ingulf everything ; then as rapidly 


Malbone . 


229 

sank, and again presented a mere quiet vesti- 
bule before the excluded waves. 

They saw in glimpses, as the lightning 
flashed, the shingly beach, covered with a 
mass of creamy foam, all tremulous and fluctu- 
ating in the wind ; and this foam was con- 
stantly torn away by the gale in great shreds, 
that whirled by them as if the very fragments 
of the ocean were fleeing from it in terror, to 
take refuge in the less frightful element of 
air. 

Still the wild waves reared their heads, like 
savage, crested animals, now white, now black, 
looking in from the entrance of the cove. 
And now there silently drifted upon them 
something higher, vaster* darker than them- 
selves, — the doomed vessel. It was strange 
how slowly and steadily she swept in, — for 
her broken chain-cable dragged, as it after- 
wards proved, and kept her stern-on to the 
shore, — and they could sometimes hear amid 
the tumult a groan that seemed to come from 
the very heart of the earth, as she painfully 
drew her keel over hidden reefs. Over five 
of these (as was afterwards found) she had al- 
ready drifted, and she rose and fell more than 
once on the high waves at the very mouth of 


Malbone. 


230 

the cove, like a wild bird hovering ere it 
pounces. 

Then there came one of those great conflu- 
ences of waves described already, which, lift- 
ing her bodily upward, higher and higher and 
higher, suddenly rushed with her into the 
basin, filling it like an opened dry-dock, crash- 
ing and roaring round the vessel and upon the 
rocks, then sweeping out again and leaving 
her lodged, still stately and steady, at the cen- 
tre of the cove. 

They could hear from the crew a mingled 
sound, that came as a shout of excitement from 
some and a shriek of despair from others. 
The vivid lightning revealed for a moment 
those on shipboard '•to those on shore ; and 
blinding as it was, it lasted long enough 
to show figures gesticulating and pointing. 
The old sailor, Mitchell, tried to build a fire 
among the rocks nearest the ‘vessel, -but it 
was impossible, because of the wind. This 
was a disappointment, for the light would 
have taken away half the danger, and more 
than half the terror. Though the cove was 
more quiet than the ocean, yet it was fearful 
enough, even there. The vessel might hold 
together till morning, but who could tell ? It 


Malbone . 


231 

was almost certain that those on board would 
try to land, and there was nothing to do but 
to await the effort. The men from the farm- 
house had meanwhile come down with ropes. 

It was simply impossible to judge with any 
accuracy of the distance of the ship. One of 
these new-comers, who declared that she was 
lodged very near, went to a point of rocks, 
and shouted to those on board to heave him a 
rope. The tempest suppressed his voice, as 
it had put out the fire. But perhaps the light- 
ning had showed him to the dark figures on 
the stern ; for when the next flash came, they 
* saw a rope flung, which fell short. The real 
distance was more than a hundred yards. 

Then there was a long interval of darkness. 
The moment the next flash came they saw a 
figure let down by a rope from the stern of the 
vessel, while the hungry waves reared like 
wolves to seize it. Everybody crowded down 
to the nearest rocks, looking this way and that 
for a head to appear. They pressed eagerly in 
every direction where a bit of plank or a bar- 
rel-head floated ; they fancied faint cries here 
and there, and went aimlessly to and fro. A 
new effort, after half a dozen failures, sent a 
blaze mounting up fitfully among the rocks, 


232 


Malbone. 


startling all with the sudden change its bless- 
ed splendor made. Then a shrill shout from 
one of the watchers summoned all to a cleft 
in the cove, half shaded from the firelight, 
where there came rolling in amidst the surf, 
more dead than alive, the body of a man. It 
was the young foreigner, J ohn Lambert’s boat- 
man. He bore"still around him the rope that 
was to save the rest. 

How pale and eager their faces looked as 
they bent above him ! But the eagerness was 
all gone from his, and only the pallor left. 
While the fishermen got the tackle rigged, 
such as it was, to complete the communication 
with the vessel, the young men worked upon 
the boatman, and soon had him restored to 
consciousness. He was able to explain that 
the ship had been severely strained, and that 
all on board believed she would go to pieces 
before morning. No one would risk being the 
first to take the water, and he had at last volun- 
teered, as being the best swimmer, on condi- 
tion that Emilia should be next sent, when the 
communication was established. 

Two ropes were then hauled on board the 
vessel, a larger and a smaller. By the flicker- 
ing firelight and the rarer flashes of lightning 


Malbone . 


233 


(the rain now falling in torrents) they saw a 
hammock slung to the larger rope ; a woman’s 
form was swathed in it ; and the smaller rope 
being made fast to this, they found by pulling 
that she could be drawn towards the shore. 
Those on board steadied the hammock as it 
was lowered from the ship, but the waves 
seemed maddened by this effort to escape 
their might, and they leaped up at her again 
and again. The rope drooped beneath her 
weight, and all that could be done from shore 
was to haul her in as fast as possible, to abbre- 
viate the period of buffeting and suffocation. 
As she neared the rocks she qpuld be kept 
more safe from the water \ faster and faster 
she was drawn in ; sometimes^ there came 
some hitch and stoppage, but by steady pa- 
tience it was overcome. 

She was so near the rocks that hands 
were already stretched to grasp her, when 
there came one of the great surging waves 
that sometimes filled the basin. It gave a 
terrible lurch to the stranded vessel hitherto 
so erect ; the larger rope snapped instantly ; 
the guiding rope was twitched from the hands 
that held it ; and the canvas that held Emilia 
was caught and swept away like a shred of 


234 


Malbone. 


foam, and lost amid the whiteness of the 
seething froth below. Fifteen minutes after, 
the hammock came ashore empty, the lash- 
ings having parted. 

The cold daybreak was just opening, though 
the wind still blew keenly, when they found 
the body of Emilia. It was swathed in a roll 
of sea-weed, lying in the edge of the surf, on a 
broad, flat rock near where the young boatman 
had come ashore. The face was not disfigured ; 
the clothing was only torn a little, and tangled 
closely round her ; but the life was gone. 

It was Philip who first saw her ; and he stood 
beside her for a moment motionless, stunned 
into an aspect of tranquillity. This, then, was 
the end. All his ready sympathy, his wooing 
tenderness, his winning compliances, his self- 
indulgent softness, his perilous amiability, his 
reluctance to give pain or to see sorrow, — all 
had ended in this. For once, he must force 
even his accommodating and evasive nature 
to meet the plain, blank truth. Now all his 
characteristics appeared changed by the en- 
counter ; it was Harry who was ready, thought- 
ful, attentive, — while Philip, who usually had 
all these traits, was paralyzed among his 
dreams. Could he have fancied such a scene 


Malbone. 


235 


beforehand, he would have vowed that no hand 
but his should touch the breathless form of 
Emilia. As it was, he instinctively made way 
for the quick gathering of the others, as if 
almost any one else had a better right to be 
there. 

The storm had blown itself out by sunrise ; 
the wind had shifted, beating down the waves ; 
it seemed as if everything in nature were ex- 
hausted. The very tide had ebbed away. The 
light-ship rested between the rocks, helpless, 
still at the mercy of the returning waves, and 
yet still upright and with that stately look of 
unconscious pleading which a]>l shipwrecked 
vessels wear. It is wonderfully like the look I 
have seen in the face of some dead soldier, on 
whom war had done its worst. Every line of 
a ship is so built for motion, every part, while 
afloat, seems so full of life and so answering to 
the human life it bears, that this paralysis of 
shipwreck touches the imagination as if the 
motionless thing had once been animated by a 
soul. 

And not far from the vessel, in a chamber of 
the seaside farm-house, lay the tenderer and 
fairer wreck of Emilia. Her storms and her 
passions were ended. The censure of the world, 


Malbone. 


236 

the anguish of friends, the clinging arms of 
love, were nothing now to her. Again the soft 
shelter of unconsciousness had clasped her in ; 
but this time the trance was longer and the 
faintness was unto death. 

From the moment of her drifting ashore, it 
was the young boatman who had assumed the 
right to care for her and to direct everything. 
Philip seemed stunned ; Harry was his usual 
clear-headed and efficient self; but to his 
honest eyes much revealed itself in a little 
while; and when Hope arrived in the early 
morning, he said to her, “ This boatman, who 
once saved your life, is Emilia’s Swiss lover, 
Antoine Marval.” 

“More than lover,” said the young Swiss, 
overhearing. “ She was my wife before God, 
when you took her from me. In my country, 
a betrothal is as sacred as a marriage. Then 
came that man, he filled her heart with 
illusions, and took her away in my ab- 
sence. When my brother was here in the 
corvette, he found her for me. Then I 
came for her ; I saved her sister ; then I 
saw the name on the card and would not give 
my own. I became her servant. She saw me 
in the yacht, only once ; she knew me ; she 


Malbone . 


237 


was afraid. Then she said, * Perhaps I still 
love you, — a little ; I do not know ; I am in 
despair ; take me from this home I hate/ We 
sailed that day in the small boat for Nar- 
ragansett, — I know not where. She hardly 
looked up or spoke ; but for me, I cared for 
nothing since she was with me. When the 
storm came, she was frightened, and said, 
‘ It is a retribution.’ I said, ‘ You shall never 
go back.’ She never did. Here she is. You 
cannot take her from me.” 

Once on board tjie light-ship, she had been 
assigned the captain’s state-room, while An- 
toine watched at the door. She seemed to 
shrink from him whenever ' he went to speak 
to her, he owned, but she answered kindly and 
gently, begging to be left alone. When at 
last the vessel parted her moorings, he per- 
suaded Emilia to come on deck and be lashed 
to the mast, where she sat without com- 
plaint. 

Who can fathom the thoughts of that be- 
wildered child, as she sat amid the spray and 
the howling of the blast, while the doomed 
vessel drifted on with her to the shore ? Did 
all the error and sorrow of her life pass dis- 
tinctly before her? Or did the roar of the 


Malbone. 


238 

surf lull her into quiet, like the unconscious 
kindness of wild creatures that toss and bewil- 
der their prey into unconsciousness ere they 
harm it ? None can tell. Death answers no 
questions ; it only makes them needless. 

The morning brought to the scene John 
Lambert, just arrived by land from New 
York. 

The passion of John Lambert for his wife 
was of that kind which ennobles while it lasts, 
but which rarely outlasts marriage. A man 
of such uncongenial mould will love an en- 
chanting woman with a mad, absorbing pas- 
sion, where self-sacrifice is so mingled with 
selfishness that the two emotions seem one; 
he will hungrily yearn to possess her, to call 
her by his own name, to hold her in his arms, 
to kill any one else who claims her. But when 
she is once his wife, and his arms hold a body 
without a soul, — no soul at least for him, — 
then her image is almost inevitably profaned, 
and the passion which began too high for 
earth ends far too low for heaven. Let now 
death change that form to marble, and in- 
stantly it resumes its virgin holiness ; though 
the presence of life did not sanctify, its de- 
parture does. It is only the true lover to 


Malbone. 


239 

whom the breathing form is as sacred as the 
breathless. 

That ideality of nature which love had de- 
veloped in this man, and which had already 
drooped a little during his brief period of mar- 
riage, was born again by the side of death. 
While Philip wandered off silent and lonely 
with his grief, John Lambert knelt by the 
beautiful remains, talking inarticulately, his 
eyes streaming with unchecked tears. Again 
was Emilia, in her marble paleness, the calm 
centre of a tragedy she herself had caused. 
The wild, ungoverned child was the image of 
peace ; it was the stolid and prosperous man 
who was in the storm. It was not till Hope 
came that there was any change. Then his 
prostrate nature sought hers, as the needle 
leaps to the iron ; the first touch of her hand, 
the sight of her kiss upon Emilia’s forehead, 
made him strong. It was the thorough sub- 
jection of a worldly man toJ:h£ higher or- 
ganization of a noble woman, and thenceforth 
it never varied. In later years, after he had 
foolishly sought, as men will, to win her to 
a nearer tie, there was no moment when she 
had not full control over his time, his energies, 
and his wealth. 


240 


Malbone . 


After it was all ended, Hope told him every- 
thing that had happened ; but in that wild 
moment of his despair she told him nothing. 
Only she and Harry knew the story of the 
young Swiss ; and now that Emilia was 
gone, her early lover had no wish to speak of 
her to any but these two, or to linger long 
where she had been doubly lost to him, by 
marriage and by death. The world, with all 
its prying curiosity, usually misses the key to 
the very incidents about which it asks most 
questions ; and of the many who gossiped or 
mourned concerning Emilia, none knew the 
tragic complication which her death alone 
could have solved. The breaking of Hope’s 
engagement to Philip was attributed to every 
cause but the true one. And when the storm 
of the great Rebellion broke over the land, its 
vast calamity absorbed all minor griefs. 


Malbo7te . 


241 


XXIII. 

REQUIESCAT. 

HANK God ! it is not within the power 



of one man’s errors to blight the promise 
of a life like that of Hope. It is but ^a feeble 
destiny that is wrecked by passion, when it 
should be ennobled. Aunt Jane and Kate 
watched Hope closely during her years of 
probation, for although she fancied herself to 
be keeping her own counsel, yet her career lay 
in broad light for them. She was like yonder 
sailboat, which floats conspicuous by night 
amid the path of moonbeams, and which yet 
seems to its own voyagers to be remote and 
unseen upon a waste of waves. 

Why should I linger over the details of her 
life, after the width of ocean lay between her 
and Malbone, and a manhood of self-denying 
usefulness had begun to show that even he 
could learn something by life’s retributions ? 
We know what she was, and it is of secondary 
importance where she went or what she did. 
Kindle the light of the light-house, and it has 


p 


11 


242 • Malbone. 

nothing to do, except to shine. There is for 
it no wrong direction. There is no need to 
ask, “ How ? Over which especial track of 
distant water must my light go forth, to find 
the wandering vessel to be guided in ? ” It 
simply shines. Somewhere there is a ship 
that needs it, or if not, the light does its duty. 
So did Hope, j 

We must leave her here. Yet I cannot 
bear to think of her as passing through earth- 
ly life without tasting its deepest bliss, without 
the last pure ecstasy of human love, without 
the kisses of her own children on her lips, 
their waxen fingers on her bosom. 

And yet again, is this life so long ? May it 
not be better to wait until its little day is done, 
and the summer night of old age has yielded 
to a new morning, before attaining that acme 
of joy? Are there enough successive grades 
of bliss for all eternity, if so much be consum- 
mated here ? Must all novels end with an 
earthly marriage, and nothing be left for 
heaven ? 

Perhaps, for such as Hope, this life is given 
to show what happiness might be, and they 
await some other sphere for its fulfilment. 
The greater part of the human race live out 


Malbone. 


243 


their mortal years without attaining more than 
a far-off glimpse of the very highest joy. 
Were this life all, its very happiness were 
sadness.^ If, as^ I doubt not, there be another 
sphere, then that which is unfulfilled in this 
must yet find completion, nothing omitted, noth- 
ing denied. And though a thousand oracles 
should pronounce this thought an idle dream, 
neither Hope nor I would believe them. 

It was a radiant morning of last February 
when I walked across the low hills to the 
scene of the wreck. Leaving the road before 
reaching the Fort, I struck across the wild 
moss-country, full of boulders" and footpaths 
and stunted cedars and' sullen ponds. I 
crossed the height of land, where the ruined 
lookout stands like the remains of a Druidical 
temple, and then went down toward the ocean. 
Banks and ridges of snow lay here and there 
among the fields, and the white lines of distant 
capes seemed but drifts running seaward. The 
ocean was gloriously alive, — the blackest blue, 
with white caps on every wave ; the shore was 
all snowy, and the gulls were flying back and 
forth in crowds ; you could not tell wheth- 
er they were the white waves coming ashore, 
or bits of snow going to sea. A single frag- 


244 


Malbone. 


ment of ship-timber, black with time and 
weeds, and crusty with barnacles, heaved to 
and fro in the edge of the surf, and two fisher- 
men’s children, a boy and girl, tilted upon it 
as it moved, clung with the semblance of ter- 
ror to each other, and played at shipwreck. 

rocks were dark with moisture, steam- 
ing in the sun. • Great sheets of ice, white 
masks of departing winter, clung to every 
projecting cliff, or slid with crash and shiver 
into the surge. Icicles dropped their slow 
and reverberating tears upon the rock where 
Emilia once lay breathless ; and it seemed as 
if their cold, chaste drops were sent to cleanse 
from her memory each scarlet stain, and leave 
it virginal and pure. 


THE END. 


Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 




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